charity Christmas fair

Porthcawl Town Council runs a Charity Christmas Fair every year. Its usual location is John Street, but this time it was in Dock Street Car Park. 'Frozen' was this years theme, so Anna, Elsa, & Olaf needed to have pride of place. Of course, Santa needed to be there along with a couple of 7 ft candy canes and two 7ft balloon columns topped with giant balloons containing flashing coloured lights. The entrance to any event is always important, so a 24ft archway complete with giant snowflakes and flashing lights wound through the balloons, marked the way into the event for all to see. As we were decorating an outdoor event on the coast the weather was a very important factor in our preparations. Unfortunately high winds and rain were forecast for early in the day with a promise that it would clear later in the morning. As the event was to run from 10am until 6pm an early set-up would be needed. The whole family pitched in to help, we would need every hand available just to hold all the pieces down in the awful weather. The event organisers had erected a marquee for the stallholders, which they had the foresight to put sides on. Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Santa, and the flashing columns were put safely indoors. The candy canes and the arch, however were outdoors, and lashed as tightly to lampposts and street furniture as we possibly could. The weather was not going to beat us! The arch was up, the characters all in place, but just as the fair was about to open the skies darkened and the wind whipped up. My daughter, Christina, and I both turned to see the arch was just about to take off!!!! we ran to save it. We both had to hold onto the arch for about 20 minutes while water dripped off it and down our coat sleeves until the wind and rain stopped. From then on the weather improved, they had a fantastic turnout and all went very well.