In message , jbm writes
On 01/01/2017 10:53, John Hall wrote:


Some people not far away let off their fireworks at 9pm, which seemed a
little strange. Perhaps they had young children whom they didn't want to
stay up too late.

Nothing unusual about that at all, especially around here. What was
very noticeable was that almost every house occupied by East Europeans
were letting their fireworks off at 9pm or 10pm, to coincide with the
New Year in their own country I suppose.

Ah, that might well be the explanation.

It made for a very long evening indeed, especially with a new dog
(from last January) in the house. Luckily she isn't overly fazed by it
all, and only grumbled once when a massive one went off about 50 yards
away - the one that took the rain gauge by surprise.

Thankfully, the craze for New Year's Eve fireworks seems to have abated
in recent years around here, so that apart from that one instance
lasting from about 9 till 9:30 I didn't hear any more.
--
John Hall
"One can certainly imagine the myriad of uses
for a hand-held iguana maker"
Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher!)