I pull on my wellies and step out of my cottage. A was supposed to be here a quarter of an hour ago, and I’m tired of waiting for him indoors. Outside, the November air is cold and catches in my throat but the sky is lit up by a mass of stars.
Already, in the near distance, I can hear bangs, like the delicious, pleasurable pop of a champagne bottle. November has a magic all of its own. A moment or two later, A arrives. There’s a bar of fruit and nut wedged deep in his pocket. The reason, I suspect, he is late. We never could resist a bar of fruit and nut on an excursion.
We set off down the lane, sharing chunks of chocolate and talking, remembering the first bonfire night we went to ten years before. We were poor students then, smuggling hip flasks full of mulled wine under our coats and ripping open packets of salt and vinegar crisps to share around the pub table. We’re older now, but going to bonfire night together has become a ritual of sorts.
The country lanes into the village are slippery, given the deluge of rain we’ve endured for the last fortnight. We cling tight to each other and shine our pathetic phone torches on the path ahead. I’m disappointed I didn’t have the imagination to buy a little lantern, which would’ve made the evening’s walk far more enchanting.
We stumble down the lane: past the manor house with its beautiful topiary garden, past a tumbled-down stone wall, and the remnants of a pumpkin where some naughty teenagers have gone on a smashing rampage.
Ahead, I can see plumes of smoke. We scramble over a stile, across the sheep field, over the ford and down into the village. The cottages gleam softly from the inside: candles flicker in windows, and there are copper lights strung in porches and above doorways.
This is the England that I love.
As we join the main road, we’re surrounded by more people heading towards the cricket pitch, where the evening’s revelries are in full swing. I sing the mob song from Beauty and the Beast until A begs me to stop.
As we draw closer, I feel the heat emanating from the bonfire . There is music playing, and people gather in large groups, laughing into the night sky. The scent of woodsmoke, mulled cider, and sugary doughnuts mingle in the air. Children light sparklers, squealing with delight as they fizzle and dance in front of them. The bonfire is roaring, and I can see the skeletons of tables and chairs all ablaze.
Fire is never more powerful or mesmerising than it is in the short, cold months. I warm my cold hands as I wait for A to bring me a hot cider from the pop-up pub tent. Soon, the sky bursts into life. The fireworks have begun. Colourful rockets shoot into the blackness, followed by gold willows, spinning Catherine wheels and roman candles that look like a fistful of stars. The crowds' oooohhhh’ and “aaaahhh’, like hobbits watching a light show by Gandalf himself.
I look around me, drinking in this bucolic scene. Here, in a tiny ancient village, buried deep in the South West of England, I feel at home.
This, I realise, is magic.
After years of not fitting in my birthland, I’ve finally found somewhere where I belong. A place to call my own.
Growing up in Northern Ireland, I never felt the affinity with the landscape or the culture as I do here. I hated the flags, the marches, the painted pavements. The ‘our side’ and ‘their side.’ There is no edge to the people here. They’re simple and good-natured with an appetite for merriment. As I sip my cider and taste the year’s harvest, I am as happy as can be.
When the display is over, we buy doughnuts for the walk home to the cottage. I invite A in for tea and cinnamon toast. We shut the door on the November dark.
.