Bonfire Night proper...

7pm and its Bonfire Night proper outside.
It sounds like downtown Baghdad out there tonight, just like last night.

The fireworks started at around 5pm as soon as it got dark last night and will continue unabated until at least 10pm tonight, its hard to believe that there are that many fireworks in the world let alone in this small part of Leeds.

And still today in Costco people were wheeling out hundreds of pounds worth of aerial display fireworks, some of them costing dozens of pounds each and resembling an early Soyez space mission, light one and for fifteen seconds your guests will be well impressed as your £30 goes bang all over the neighborhood.

Unfortunately Jake the Golden Retriever does not like loud bangs which was rather unfortunate for him as a puppy because he was bred by a gamekeeper to be a gundog. He's eight years old now and still won't go out into the garden on a sunday morning as a nearby farm has a clay pigeon shoot so you can only imagine what a two night barrage of night time explosions does for his nerves.

We've all stayed in with him for both nights, I even tempted him to the back door last night with two Jaffa Cakes in an attempt to show him that the bangs were harmless, he accepted one Jaffa cake but scooted away when another rocket went up - have you ever heard of a Retriever refusing a Jaffa Cake ?

He's now curled up under the table I'm sitting at, panting in panic, drooling at the mouth and frequently pacing the room up and down tring to find a place where he won't be able to hear the bangs, truth is there is no respite from them, its really awful to watch his distress.

Last night he spent the night in Mandy's bedroom, its the only night of the year when we allow him upstairs, normally you can't even force him to go upstairs as he knows its not allowed, last night he was the first one under the bed.

I'm going to sit with him in the TV room now, volume up full, packet of Jaffa Cakes, see if he'll calm down any.