Ottery St. Mary's

Having drifted away from the previous blog, A Year of Snow, I feel that as I gradually update that with my few final news snippets, I may as well get another blog under way following my triumphant return to England in this new ground-breaking blog, A Year of Rain. To sum up the past few months before writing those into either A Year of Snow of another blog, I shall briefly mention that I travelled alone from Irkutsk through Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Singapore before flying back via Egypt and Germany. An incredible trip which any faithful readers may be able to read about whenever that is posted (don't hold your breath).

Back in the UK, little has really changed since I departed - we have a new conservative government, which appears to be a phenomenon recurring throughout Europe, but otherwise all is well - once I arrived back, I was almost instantly swamped with work, but managed to work in a few visits to see some friends, and to eventually fly back to Spain and spend a few days with my family there before coming back to my new base, Exeter. More on that later though - for the moment, I have been living in relative peace and quiet here in the South West, so nothing much can be said of such a peaceful existence - hence, instead of updating this blog with the frequency with which I often did in Irkutsk, I shall be updating it only once a week or so - whenever anything of note happens.

As it is, one of those incidents of note was yesterday - despite being Guy Fawkes' Day, I decided to stay in and get some work done, especially seeing as so many students were probably going to Ottery St. Mary's to watch the show there anyway. Eventually, however, I got coerced by my housemates into going, and it really was worth it, despite my having gone three years previously. Ottery St. Mary's is a small, rather traditional English town throughout most of the year, but on Guy Fawkes day, they celebrate a rather odd ritual, the 'The Flaming Tar Barrels' - throughout the night the men, women and children native to the village race through the crowded streets holding barrels of flaming tar aloft.

Dangerous, maybe, but also a great deal of fun, and not something any visitor to the South West should miss out on if coming at this time of year. We drove down in two cars, Em driving Nick, Sian and myself, and Ed driving Charlotte, Loz and Mateo, although we met plenty of people there as well, bumping into other acquaintances time and again. After driving in and parking, the eight of us made our way down to the massive bonfire dominating a field just outside of the village next to a large attraction park. We stood and watched a while before carrying on down into the village.

Almost instantly, when we hit the main crowds, we became separated, but I managed to keep track of Charlotte, Loz and Mateo, and walked around with them for most of the night. After witnessing a few of the children's tar barrels, we decided to head back to the bonfire to get warm before the main events (the men's tar barrels, which, being the largest, are also the most impressive). The bonfire had died down a fair bit, allowing us to get closer and catch some more of the warmth from the flames, which we did, despite having to trudge through a muddy field to get to it!

Once we were done there, we wandered back up to the village and followed three or four tar barrels before we met up with Sian, and shortly afterwards with Ed and Emma, whom we had offered to drive back. After another brief meander through the village, we headed back towards the bonfire, where we decided that it was time to head home.