How's yer plums?

This weekend the family learned why our American cousins like to differentiate between a torch and a flashlight.


We went to a firework display in the local town of Wokingham (famed, amongst other things, for having a Vulcan in the shape or John Redwood represent them in the Houses of Parliament). We Brits do this every year in the first week of November and, on many occasions, an effigy of Guy Fawkes (a Catholic bent on regicide and the obliteration of a Protestant government) is burned.


The display was preceded by a torchlit procession from the market square to the 'fairground' where the display was to take place. Participants could, on parting with a mere five pounds, take possession of a flaming torch made out of a length of broomstick (note to self, check to see if the mother-in-law's runabout has been stolen) and some sacking soaked in wax.



Knowing that it was a racing certainty that at least one Family member would, as is often the case when walking around a field in the dark, stand in the leavings of one of the local canine populace I also stuck a battery-operated torch in my pocket so that we could check and discount this eventuality before getting back in the car.


Seeing me pocket the flashlight, the good lady wife was heard to enquire -"What's that for, Damsons in Distress?".


I shouldn't mock - she's given me some splendid ideas. Watch this space over the coming weeks for a play based upon the story of "Damson and Delilah"[1] and a fairy tale about a young fruit imprisoned in a tower by an evil sorceress which I'm intending to call Raplumzel.


[1] Actually, I can't really claim that one as my own idea. I must give credit to my good friend Rod, who likes to dress up as a lady in front of paying strangers.