Kendal Torchlight 2017

This Friday it was Kendal's annual Torchlight parade through the town. It is a chance for local schools, groups and charities to get together and show the rest of the town their fun side. This year the theme was Once Upon A Time.

My son had volunteered to be on his school's float and had helped (along with children from all the year groups) to make the props for the float. On Friday morning I was one a of team of volunteer parents who joined the organising TAs to put it altogether. The first thing I saw was this amazing wicker shoe (The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe):

We then set to with cable ties, staplers, string and duct tape to transform the lorry into a story book wonderland:

I impressed myself, as someone scared of heights, to go up a slightly shorter ladder than this one to help put the message on the back of the truck:

Even the wheels had storybook covers attached by cable tie - one mum crawled under the truck to make this job easier!

Castle walls were attached to the safety netting and I helped to staple on the grass and flowers:

Signposts had been made directing you to various story land places:

In the middle of the float two giant books had been made:

Once set up we realised the back pages were blank so quickly added some decoration:

One end of the float had a castle backdrop, the wicker shoe and the beanstalk! There were books hanging from the roof all the way down:

After 7 hours the float was finally ready:

I dropped off the BFG, complete with dream catcher and dream jar, at the start of the parade:

I was walking with a different group so headed to the walking start where there were some magnificent puppets:

I was walking to help promote Organ Donation with Kendal Organ Donor Town:

It did mean I didn't really see much else of the parade so luckily a friend caught my son's float for me:

The next morning we were told that we needed to be at the award ceremony at the street carnival. Beforehand we wandered around to get a closer look at some of the wonderful creations from the previous night:

The Pied Piper of Hamlein had led the parade on the Friday and he was on hand to help give out the prizes:

After a long wait we were finally called on to the stage to receive the trophy for best school at Torchlight: