Happy Diwali – Health and Safety Hell

Diwali is a wonderful celebration and one I really enjoyed.  I enjoyed walking around the town and seeing all of the coloured lights, candles and lamps. Although I now realise that Diwali is also a lot like one long intro scene from Casualty (for all of those outside the United Kingdom it was or shall I say still is a fictional drama series set in an Accident and Emergency department of a hospital, cheerful it is not!)

Some of the things I saw whilst going around the town were:

·         Children as young as 1 with sparklers, OK so their parents were holding them with them but they definitely didn’t have gloves on OR a bucket of water to put them in when they had finished.

·         Children as young as 4 setting of fireworks in the street with sparklers, they also had on some rather flammable looking attire.

·         Rockets being let off around very built up areas, including about a foot away from my window!

·         Shop keepers with fireworks in cardboard boxes with candles all around them.

·         Shop keepers with candles attached to rather large wooden tables with fireworks displayed on them.

·         Fireworks and fire crackers being let off in the middle of the street. I was on a rickshaw as a small (thank goodness) roman candle was let off and my seat was directly over the top of it by the time it went off, too much squealing and waving of arms (from me). The rickshaw driver just turned around, tutted at me and shook his head. Sorry for making a scene but you know fiery colourful stuff was dangerously close to my bottom!

I could not take photos as both of my camera batteries have now died (collective sigh of relief as you do not have to look at my shoddy photography anymore)

I can honestly say I am a fireworks wimp and even the small and sweet fireworks I was running away from. I guess I took the health and safety messages to heart and they have been rather effectively drilled into me from the years of Bonfire Night warnings. That aside I did not see throngs of people with missing limbs/burns which means they are either really lucky or celebrating Diwali does work after all!