The Third Of August...

doesn't have the same cachet at the Fourth of July, but when Manchester (the city I live in) cancelled their annual firework show on the holiday because of the hot, dry weather they rescheduled it for last night.  Hubby Tony and I were there.

 The city hosts a music concert once a month during the summer, and last night's entertainment had been scheduled long ago; they just added the fireworks portion.  Last week a sign went up at the entrance to the park advertising the band.   A couple of days later a smaller sign was added next to it touting the fireworks.   However, if anything it's even hotter and dryer now than it was in July, so I kept expecting them to cancel the fireworks.   When the sign was still there on Thursday I figured it was going to happen.

We got to the park a few minutes before the music started at 6:30 and set up our chairs at the top of a hill.  It was still 90 degrees, but there was a nice breeze that made it bearable.  The band was called  HoneyVox, and they played a nice variety of dance music...a little pop, disco, and R&B.

The fireworks were scheduled for 9:30.  Tony noted that at the beginning of July the day would have been longer, but in August it was quite dark at 9:00.  Fifteen minutes before the band stopped playing the park lights went out, and we knew it was close to fireworks time.  We moved the chairs back and spread a small blanket on the ground so we could lay down.

The fireworks were set up on the park's baseball fields, behind some trees and just past the playground from where we were sitting.  When the show started, I felt like we were right there.  Some of the bursts were so bright I had to close my eyes!  The show lasted almost 25 minutes, and ended with a huge flurry of bursts in the sky.

The whole thing was worth the month-long wait.