Grenade!!

Posted by on 26, Mar 2015 in 2015 - Iberia and Morocco, Europe, Spain, Taffy

Grenade!!

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‎Spain and Britain share the same attitude to firework safety as each other. Both countries have festivals where fireworks play key roles and both have an age restrictions for buying fireworks of 16. The difference is Spain mean months. Literally if you can walk, the
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n for one week in March you’ll be given limitless supplies of high explosive and a box of matches and told to go and scare the crap out of the tourists!

And these aren’t ordinary fireworks either. No pretty ones, no aaaahhhh, just lots of noise and a lot of smoke. These aren’t so much you’re normal UK bangers, more their Thermo nuclear cousins. And you see kids of 3 with a box of the less violent ones (teenagers upward for them) walking around the street casually lighting one after another and throwing them on the ground. It’s not the place to be if you’re of a nervous disposition or have a dodgy heart.

The city smells of fireworks and is heaving with people coming to see the processions which last for hours, view the paper mache dolls that have been hand made by local groups and of course to lob fireworks at people., if you go more than a second without hearing ‎an enormous bang then you’re probably suffering from shell shock and need to seek medical advice.

The whole purpose of this week’s festivities is to take the micky out of local politicians and figures who have been satirised in these dolls which then are set on fire at 1am on the last day of the festivities which we imagine is a day the fire service can’t take as annual leave.

The organised displays are crescendos of noise and happen throughout the day First you get some really loud bangs, then they become machine gun fire and finally you think the Luftwaffle have just levelled the business district and the locals applaud and leave merrily with big grins and bleeding ears in search of the next barrage…

In between these organised affairs the kids and men are lighting bangers the size of toilet rolls and lobbing them off the bridges at passing tandems and as we cycled home it was like being in an action movie, though we did suffer a broken chain on the way home which we’re putting down to shrapnel damage.

All in all a fabulous experience which Blue Peter would definitely not approve of!

2 Comments

  1. i love these blogs, makes me smile!
    Does Linda go at the front or back of the tandem? And if at the back Jon do you ever moan that she doesn’t do her share of the peddling? x

    • Jon’s on the front so Linda can keep an eye on him! And we know “She’s not pedalling ” in 30 different languages! Glad you like the blobs.

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