The Thinker injured in the Festive Wars!

Its been a big and accident prone day for the Syme family for you see…today was my middle son’s Christmas play at school and he had been cast in a leading speaking role as Herod…but…he had a fall.

Girvan Primary is a great school and my feelings in this were reinforced again today by this accident.  It was totally my son’s fault, in putting on his golden costume he tripped and banged his head.  He is fine but a scalp injury was the result and those as you will know bleed profusely.   Myself and my good lady were already in the school and about to take our places in the audience when we were called to him.  The staff had made him comfortable and were fussing over him and as the picture shows he had a bandage on his head.   I was rapidly told of the incident and what had taken place with a high level of professionalism.  I drove the lad to the Girvan Hospital where he got the best of attention (local hospitals with A&E departments are a wonderful idea!) and was checked over without any delay.  He wanted to return to the school to tell his class and teacher he was fine so we did.  All of his friends were frankly ecstatic to see him and not less than six different members of staff stopped us and checked on him by name and how he felt.  Girvan Primary is indeed a super school.

So my son missed the play and his chance to shine on the stage at least.  But shine he did.  I was so proud of him stoically sitting while he was examined without a peep and polite to a fault to all the teaching and medical staff he encountered despite the visible pain he was in.  It also made me realise more (as I do not spent any time normally in the school) than ever just how central to his class he actually is.  “There is a lot of potential in his noggin and it would be a shame to dent it further.” I head this a dozen times in an hour.  He even insisted on us cleaning and returning the golden costume to the school!

Tomorrow is my youngest son’s play….perhaps I will get to see this one 🙂

GBS

The Fantastic Four!

On Saturday evening the annual Festival of Light was held in Girvan.  I had been building up to this as a big part of the festival is the procession of hundreds of children from one end of Girvan to the beach front and the sea; each child has a self made lantern.  In special after lessons classes in school or at workshops held in the town these wood and thick paper lanterns, each with a candle within to light it up, are assembled and then sent home for the big night.  My eldest ‘The Thinker’ had made a lantern, as he has done since he began school, while my middle and youngest had not.  So after dinner we set out wrapped up to the nines against the cold for a couple of hours of unique fun and community spirit.

The Procession of Light moves out!

Girvan is not a big town but it still amazes me how many children it contains.  As the crowd began to build I lost count at maybe four hundred youngsters plus the same again or more of adults.  There must have been easily a couple of hundred lit lanterns which on top of the ones created by the kids had a dozen or so much larger lanterns in the shape of birds, windmills and other structures.  The weather was kind, dry, no wind and not really even that cold (I remember 2009 when the ice formed on my coat as I stood watching!).  It took about half an hour to assemble the ‘battalion’ to marching orders and to get us under way to the sound of a drum based band.  The procession made good time through the town and to the beach front where a large crowd was waiting for the next part of the evening…the fireworks!

Fire and Light!

It was not easy to get images at the time of the fireworks as not only was it pitch black but the whizz pops and bangs are hard to capture.  The picture above  is fairly good taken by my darling wife.  It shows the fireworks exploding over the water plus the display on the beach.  Each year a series of wooden structures are built on the sand and then to music and video display are set alight.  It is a great show and lasts for about fifteen minutes.  My children loved it and cheered and wooped as the fires raged and drums hammered all to the staccato cracks and booms of coloured lights in the sky.

All in all it was a fine way to spend a couple of hours and in an age of austerity it was excellent to see the town put on a show that is all paid for by the people themselves by donation.  Here is to next year…if you are near, then come on by!

GBS