I do enjoy the sight of staged firework exhibitions and still harbour colourful memories of childhood bonfires and bursting bonhomie in the skies, but something's changed.
They seem more aggravating today.
They are louder and more of them are going off deep within suburban streets and parks.
Used to be "righto, off to the beach" and that was that.
Oh maybe I'm just keeping old (there's no maybe about it).
I guess there is the argument that "bonfire night" has sort of lost its way, in terms of what sparked it in the first place.
Kids today would have no idea who Guy Fawkes was.
We all knew...some of the teachers would tell us all about him and how he planned to literally blow up the political landscape of the English parliamentary system.
Way before Brexit.
So we'd make a guy...usually one of dad's old boiler suits from the fert' works stuffed with paper and dried-up seaweed.
One time we stuffed a couple of "mighty cannons" where the eyes should have been...that was pretty cool.
And I think my memory serves me well here, for I can't remember the fireworks of that era being so loud.
Even the firecrackers had nothing on some of those mini-mortars they ignite today...you can hear them from half-a-city away.
Also, I can't really recall fireworks being exploded night after night in the wake of Guy Fawkes night.
Once they were done, they were done.
So you only had to keep the cat in for one night.
Now our poor little startled beast will effectively be under the constraints of home detention for the next fortnight...at least, if past years are anything to go by.
A couple of big public shows would be just fine and dandy, and the rest of the Commonwealth would finally look our way and say "about time too".
And so to the rain.
That meteorological component which has the ability to break droughts as well as hearts.
Both of those are achieved when Cricket New Zealand stages a one-day international at McLean Park.
I've just been wandering through the latest spring-summer forecast for the next three months which has been put together by Niwa.
They use those things called "models" to plan which Nino is set to take an extended holiday in our part of the world.
La or El?
It appears La may have won the coin toss and that means two things.
It will likely be above average in terms of temperatures so we can all go yippee!
But La is a humid sort of fellow, or lady (I'm not sure of the gender of Mother Nature's Latino twins) and that heat is almost certainly going to see accompanied by moisture.
Average, or above average, rainfall for eastern regions of the North Island.
Okey-dokey.
Now that could suit some sectors of the horticulture sector but I'm not sure about the viticultural side.
Rain comes from cloud and clouds are like curtains to the sun.
Sunshine is a requirement for good growth and rain also means a requirement for one item of clothing I have always stubbornly refused to wear in summer.
A raincoat.
I slip into denial of rain being a component of summer, and believe raincoats should be like daylight saving.
Put them back (into the cupboard) on December 1 and put them forward (back onto the hook out by the back door) on June 1.
It is a rule I live by, to which a mate once rightly remarked on a damp day last February when I told him of it, "you must be wet".
He was right.
*Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.
