For Fawkes' sake!

I've been even jumpier than usual lately, because people have been setting off fireworks at random times of day and night all over the city for a week now. Just a few minutes ago I died a little death when, minding my own business and washing dishes at the sink, I was blinded by a flash of light and then deafened by a squeal and an insanely loud CRACK. I'd swear it was in our backyard, but it must have been the neighbours. I can hear other bangs and pops in the distance. Honestly, people. It's called bonfire NIGHT, not bonfire MONTH. I know it's a subtle distinction but let's give it a try. This is even more tiresome than the week-long car-horn celebrations in Toronto whenever Portugal beat some downtrodden developing nation in the World Cup. People of delicate sensibilities, such as myself, should not be subjected to such shocks. My right eyelid has developed a twitch due to jangled nerves. (Or it could be due to the fact that I stare all day at a truly awful computer monitor at work. I put in a request for a flat-screen LCD monitor. I was given a voucher for an eye test. Stalemate.)

Today I experienced my first real old-fashioned English pea-souper. I walked to work this morning in a thick fog. I walked home from work nine hours later in an even thicker fog. (I spent the intervening hours also in a thick fog, but that was the lack-of-sleep variety.) It was dark by then, and I had to pass a cemetery on a fairly deserted stretch of road, and, well, reading all those mystery novels doesn't help at such times. It was like something out of Sherlock Holmes. The other side of the street was nothing but dark shapes. Bikes and pedestrians, and the Hound of the Baskervilles (or at least an impossibly large dog), loomed out of nowhere. Headlights and streetlamps ineffectually bounced off the droplets of water in the air, only decreasing visibility. Trees dripped even though it wasn't raining. Double-decker buses looked like alien ships. It was all kind of cool in an eerie way, for about five minutes. Then it because claustrophobic. The air was vaguely suffocating, like breathing through a damp cloth. The pressure on my sinuses was intense.

And then more of those blasted fireworks! In a dense fog! When I'm struggling to focus my eyes on anything a few feet ahead, and momentarily wonder if I've been shot! It's such a trial to be high-strung. (As opposed to strung high, which is what happened to Guy Fawkes before he was summarily drawn and quartered. The English are nothing if not thorough.)