{"id":608,"date":"2011-11-07T23:11:27","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T15:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.wordpress.com\/?p=608"},"modified":"2013-06-17T18:23:38","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T18:23:38","slug":"penny-for-the-guy-at-sea-1152011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"Penny for the Guy? \u2013 At Sea \u2013 [11\/5\/2011]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember, remember the 5th<\/sup> of November
\nThe Gunpowder treason and plot
\nI see no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot<\/em><\/p>\n

You know it\u2019s strange, the only day I really, really<\/em> miss England is Guy Fawkes\u2019 Day.<\/p>\n

I remember so clearly hiking up this crazy winding dirt road with the rest of the girls from theatre college, all bundled up in mufflers and gloves because it\u2019s really cold in Hitchin in November. We were part of a huge crowd – some clutching sparklers and matches in winter-numbed fingers – that kept growing as you got closer and closer to the bonfire site. You could hear the bonfire long before you got there. And once you got to the entrance, you could feel it long before you saw it. The crackle and pop of the huge tower of flames roared in your ears, and you couldn\u2019t get too close, because the heat felt like it would sear your skin to peeling once you got too near. This wasn\u2019t a fire you would ever consider using to roast marsh mallows. The grounds were always crowded, little kids squealing, adults acting like kids (with or without the influence of the beer that they smuggled into the supposedly dry grounds), and the sound of the background music mixed with the sounds of the crowd in this ever-growing cacophony of excitement. It was all so amazingly wonderfully loud.<\/p>\n

It was probably the only time I truly felt like I belonged to any kind of sphere of friends there. The entire rest of the year, I was the Canadian, the one who never really did fit in, the one with the weird accent and the tendencies to be too snobby, too enthusiastic about her books and her cleverness (I often wonder if anyone realized how much of a self-defense mechanism that cleverness really was \u2013 still is to this day). \u00a0I still remember the jeers at the year-end Rounders competition: \u201cCome on Canada! What\u2019s the matter, can\u2019t ya hit?\u201d. On Bonfire night though, I was just another person, just another girl with a camera, writing her name with a sparkler, oohing and aaahing at the fireworks display, getting cotton candy on her nose. Trying not to get lost in the throngs and throngs of people.<\/p>\n

Even now \u201cRule The World\u201d by Take That (better known as the theme song from the movie Stardust), puts me back there on that field, watching the finale of the fireworks display, feeling the heat of the bonfire, and the press of the people. Laughing at a friend I now don\u2019t even remember the last time I spoke to, who was making a joyful fool of herself with a glow-in-the-dark plastic light sabre. It was blue, and the glow from it created this weird halo around her in the photographs, so she looks like something from another world.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s strange really, the things you remember.<\/p>\n

I still have those photographs\u2026somewhere in the abyss of my hard-drive.<\/p>\n

Here of course, you can\u2019t have a bonfire. No open flame on a ship. We\u2019re not even allowed to bring scented candles onboard to decorate our cabins (whether or not we plan on lighting them).<\/p>\n

Makes me miss my sparklers\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThey tell us to remember the idea, not the man, men can be forgotten, they can be caught, they can be corrupted. But five hundred years later\u2026an idea can still change the world\u201d \u2013 V for Vendetta<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember, remember the 5th of November The Gunpowder treason and plot I see no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot You know it\u2019s strange, the only day I really, really miss England is Guy Fawkes\u2019 Day. I remember … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,39,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-backs","category-grand-asiaaustralia-2011","category-theme-events"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-9O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2192,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/2192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}