What a day! Despite months of organising the Blantyre Festive event, there’s one thing that cant be guaranteed, the good old Scottish Weather. Battling against fierce gale force winds and driving rain on the morning of Sunday 29th November 2015, Blantyre Community Committee, the organisers were faced with a decision to cancel the event, just as Cambuslang did with theirs.
However, thats not the spirit our community has and with the aid of the Sports Centre staff, a contingency plan was implemented mid morning to ensure the event could still progress at midday.
With the Sports centre kindly allowing use of other rooms and areas within the centre, the event accommodated the outside stalls as best as they could , inside. The Crowds still came and by midday, the event was in full swing!
With festive sounds blaring out, the festive market continued, with Santa arriving at 1pm as planned, to the delight of the kids. The indoor area set aside for the live owls display proved exceptionally popular and the facepainting looked busy all day. Another busy area as always for the hot food stall.
Just before the rain and winds whipped up again at 4.30pm, the rainclouds parted and allowed a brief dry spell for the 4 lucky children to switch on Christmas for Blantyre. With the press of a button at 4.25pm, the lights on Glasgow Road and the Christmas tree all came on.
The weather had other plans, but the best plans were progressed given the situation and from the positive comments received this afternoon, it would seem a great time was had by many.
Thank you to all the volunteers who stayed behind at the end after a LONG day to tidy up the hall, leaving not one spot of rubbish. Thanks also to the boys who put up the outside stalls in the middle of the night in the most atrocious conditions and stayed during the day to take them down safely. Blantyre’s been lucky with weather at community events these last few years. With some luck on the weather, things will be back to normal, with a big party outside next year.
Blantyre Telegraph was there as usual and took many photos. Feel free to tag away. Lights on, Christmas in Blantyre can commence!