So with Halloween out of the way it’s time to hang up our capes and witches hats and put away the zombie face paint and vampire fangs for another year. Now what’s next to come on the social calendar? Well this Saturday its bonfire night or if you’re part of the smallest, but mightiest, college on campus it’s also the legendary Furness College 15 hour bar crawl. However if you’re not privileged enough to be venturing out with the Furnessians (not that I’m biased in any way. . .) then like me and my house mates, who have found ourselves too poor and snowed in with work to join the whole 15 hour bar crawl, you’ll be trying to find ways to spend, in my opinion, one of the best nights in the year.
Since we totally overlooked bonfire night last year me and my house have opted for a pretty traditional approach to bonfire night; we’re donning our hats, gloves, scarves and snuggly winter coats (and probably umbrellas knowing the weather in Lancaster) to huddle round a make-shift bonfire in the back garden with sparklers, some winter treats, a few drinks and the possibility of setting off a few fireworks as safely as possible. Now if you’re not as lucky as us to have the space to have your own get together then every year there is a fireworks display set off from the castle in town which I’m pretty sure you can see from campus! There are leaflets dotted around listing all the events going on throughout the day so grab one to see what’s going on; if you can’t find any of these then head online to the Lancaster City Council website and all the information you need is there.
One thing that often gets overlooked at university concerning bonfire night is the fact that there are a vast number of students at Lancaster who are from outside the UK, which often means they have no idea what’s actually going on with all the fireworks and sparklers. So this Saturday take the opportunity to get yourself and them involved and spread the word about bonfire night to those who might never have experienced one before.
For those who are venturing out on the 15 hour bar crawl with Furness first let me say good luck and second enjoy it, try to pace yourself, keeping a drinks tally on your t-shirt is always useful and can be quite a claim to fame the next day. But, don’t worry if you wake up a few days later with no idea what happened as there’ll be plenty of photos documenting your slow demise and enough one-liners on your t-shirt to keep you entertained for days!
So let’s, quite literally, make this weekend go with a bang! Even if you’re just having a quiet one with a good group of mates watching some amazing fireworks or going all out representing Lancaster in town for a full 15 hours, enjoy yourself. But remember guys, not to be a buzz kill, keep safe! The last thing you want to bring a downer on things is ending up in A&E with a firework or drink related injury. Time to light up the Lancaster night in more than one way; I’m sure we can handle it. But can Lancaster handle us? We shall have to see. . .
