Lightening Up

The annual St Andrews Day parade and official switching on of the Christmas lights took place in the town today (even though St Andrews Day is not till next week and some of the lights have been on for a week or so.

Still it was quite a hoopla of festivities and marked the end of two days of Christmas events, offers and discounts in the independent shops in the town.

The parade is headed up by the local pipe band behind whom march members of the rugby and football clubs, the dance groups, theatre groups and rainbows, brownies and guides, scouts, cubs and beavers. Strangely enough, for being such fans of marching, neither the girls nor the boys brigades are represented. I wonder why.

Anyway, this year for the first time, my eldest was part of the parade (the middle one could have been too but I wasn't organised enough to get him to the rugby clubs kick off point and he wasn't that bothered either) and so we made sure we had a good viewing position.

Following the parade (which obviously needs to take place in daylight) there follows a 90 minute wait for the lights to go on and the fireworks to be launched from the town hall roof (which obviously needs to take place in darkness), during which time what seems like the whole of the town (population 11k and rising) tries to find somewhere for a hot chocolate.

Fortunately we are well serviced with cafés and the continental market was in town so there were plenty options available and all tastes catered for. We (myself and my boys and some friends) even managed to squeeze in and get some take-a-ways from our favourite place before spending £2 per child for 5 minutes on a giant bouncy slide.

Eventually the clock struck 5, the lights on the Christmas tree were switched on and the night sky was lit up with the most incredible firework display and even though I'm someone who usually waits until mid December to start feeling festive I had to admit that it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.