When I was a kid it was always foggy the day after bonfire night. All that smoke heading up into the atmosphere the night before just bounced back off the clouds and hung about for most of the day on the 6th.
And of course by "fog" I mean "fog" - not a little bit of haze like you get these days. Crumbs, the warning lights come on the M6 nowadays if you can't see Carlisle from Birmingham...
By fog I mean hold your hand up in front of your face and wonder where it is... Anyone under the age of forty will think I'm joking when I say that but we know, don't we?
The day after Bommy Night before smokeless zones, before global warming, before getting out of the way of a pensioner in a wheelchair meant having to run, was guaranteed to be a day of thick, blinding fog. A thick mist was not being able to see the houses on the other side of the street. Fog was not being able to see your own garden wall. A pea-souper was the hand in front of the face job.
I can still remember the smell and the taste of it... Bits of soot and grit between the teeth... A yellowy cast to it. Motorists leaning out of their side windows, trying to see the white line in the middle of the road, banging heads as they passed each other... All of them with plastic yellow filters stuck on their headlights because a yellow beam cut through the fog slightly (ie slightly) more than a white beam which caused more flare.
Anyway, I was in Newcastle yesterday and came home mostly after dark, thanks to a horrendous queue on the A1M going south. I saw one or two fireworks but not a single bonfire in 140 miles.
I had planned on going straight home but it took me so long (4 hours!) I stopped in Kirkby Steven where there is an excellent chippy restaurant. The plate was overflowing with gravy and mushy peas (hence my shirt, sorry Fran...) and it was unbelievably good!
After all the rain we've had, perhaps people were waiting for the weekend to have their bonfires. Or perhaps, this year, Guy Fawkes has had a reprieve...
