Rain Dancers

World Mental Health Day has been a loooooong one and I'm exhausted... But, I think it was a success!

I was in Williamson Square just after 7.00am to meet up with colleagues and await delivery and assembly of the stage, market stalls and marquees.

My second radio interview of the week ran at about 7.20 on Heart but this one was pre-recorded and apparently sounded ok. I didn't hear it!

At about 8.00am a beautiful rainbow appeared over the Square, which we took to be a good omen. And so it proved.

Stallholders, performers and MCs arrived in time and a few minor technical hitches were overcome. Both our World Mental Heath Day Ambassador, Cllr Gary Millar, and the Lord Mayor, Cllr Erica Kemp, gave fantastic speeches - talking about the impact of mental ill health on them and their families and for most of the day we were blessed with much better weather than we might have anticipated. Including a quite lengthy sunny period.

However, there were a couple of light showers and one spectacularly heavy shower - none of which dampened the spirits of the performers or the punters.

We had loads of great performances throughout the day and particular favourites of mine included our MCs - Lesley and Leslie, Mediums at Large; Mersey Swing dancers and the Night and Days swing singers; Movema and the World Mental Health Day Community Choir.

The swing dance workshop attracted a lot of public interest and participation as did the Zumba session led by our lovely friends from Movema (pictured above) who danced the rain away to huge enthusiasm from the crowd! These folks can really move!!

Collectively, we spoke to hundreds of people throughout the day and the feedback we received was all positive. The stallholders went to great lengths to interact with people in creative ways and the general vibe was fantastic!

Meanwhile, activities, meditation and advice sessions, training sessions and exhibitions were also going on elsewhere in the city. There just wasn't time to get to everything!

There was, however, time to get to Central Library this evening for the awards ceremony for our 'Mental Health and Me' writing competition. Winners and runners up in the 6 categories were presented with certificates and given the opportunity to read their shortlisted entries to the assembled audience of well over 100 people. Then the winner was announced on film by Ruby Wax, as detailed in a previous blip... Huge congratulations to all the shortlisted writers and, in particular, to our winner - Gemma Rogers. Our partners at Writing on the Wall have designed and published a beautiful anthology containing all the shortlisted entries and it sold out within minutes of the ceremony concluding so a second edition is about to hit the presses to meet demand.

Thanks are due to everyone who made today possible but particular thanks go to Sarah, Nici, Chris and Chanel for everything they've done in the last few months to make it all come together.

Now for some rest!

"Come on with the rain, there's a smile on my face."