Ann Burnett

Conferences, competitions and Chatbots

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Last weekend saw 150 writers from all over Scotland converge on the Westerwood hotel in Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, for a weekend of talks, competitions and workshops, good food, good company and a hell of a good time.

I was thrilled to be awarded second prize in the self-published book category for A Last Journey, my memoir of my husband’s struggles with dementia. Not only was it judged on content, but cover, blurb, layout, author bio and website.

It was great meeting up with many writing friends and catching up on news from around the country but now it’s back to ordinary life, if it can be classed as that. I completed my adjudication of Ayr Writers Club’s Scottish article competition and am preparing for my talk next month to carers in Dunbar.

As to Chatbots – I hate them. I’m trying to arrange car insurance, TV and broadband and heating providers and I can never talk to a human. Nuff said.

And it’s AI generated too!

Celebrating Robert Burns -and not forgetting Jean Armour

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Jean Armour was Burns’s long suffering wife who scarcely rates in the Burns hagiography but who deserves to be remembered and appreciated for all she did for him. I wrote a poem about her when doing my Masters in Creative Writing at Glasgow University.

A widow reminisces on the occasion of her late husband’s birthday

He wisnae much use as a husband, mind.
Oh aye, he was a charmer,
Ask any lassie for miles aboot,
See it in eyes o weans scattered aw roun.
But reliable, naw. A guid provider naw.
Too fu o ideas and thochts and thinking, no enough hard labour.
Left me wi a newborn and a debt to pay, 
A book o verse and scribblins, sangs and bawdy lines
That entertained his cronies many a night
While I watched the weans and stoked the flames o wrath and regret.
Too fu o radical thoughts that had the long finger pointin and 
Murmurins o treason and revolution,
Too fu o lust and adulterous fornication 
for the black coated kirk to stomach, 
Often too fu.
No, no a guid husband as you’d cry it,
But whit a man.

My friend, Catherine Czerkawska, has written too about Jean Armour. Her book, The Jewel, about her is available on Amazon.

And I wrote a fantasy story about Burns and the sycophantic fans he seems to accrue!

A Man’s a Man for a’ that!

Surely the most appropriate person to invite to the Robert Burns Celebration Festival was Robert Burns himself.

It was my duty and pleasure to invite him. I have studied his works for many years and devoted my life to the reading of his poetry. He has been my hero (what an overused word to describe my obsession with him and his work) and the opportunity to meet him would be the highlight of my whole life. Nothing was too much for me as far as he was concerned. In fact, I was prepared to die for him.

It took a bit of arranging. Time of my death, whether temporary or permanent, manner of death, where exactly he was, were all matters I discussed with the agent. Despite some trouble with the seventh commandment, the adultery one, he had in fact been accepted above and not consigned to that other place.

The date was set for my demise. I concentrated hard on what my first words to the bard should be. It was while I was turning over such weighty questions that I stepped out in front of the number 77 Express bus to Glasgow.

Despite knowing that this was the day, a surge of anger at the incompetence of drivers rose in me and I managed a weak shake of my fist at the underside of the bus before I succumbed.

I must confess to being keen to see the pearly gates and St Peter with his open ledger, so I was extremely disappointed to find myself outside what looked like the entrance to an NCP car park. A metal pole blocked my way and in a small porter’s lodge sat someone with his face hidden behind a copy of a newspaper (it was the Glasgow Herald appropriately enough) and his feet on the table.

I tapped sharply on the window. 

‘Yes?’

‘Are you St Peter?’

‘No, I’m St Leger. It’s St Peter’s day off. What do you want?’

I showed him my special pass and he consulted a scruffy piece of paper decorated with coffee rings.

‘Right, you can go in.’

He pressed a button and the barrier rose.

I walked into Heaven. I was enraptured. Now, where would I find my hero?

An angel was hovering nearby, picking his nose I was horrified to note, so I tapped him brusquely on the wing.

 ‘Can you tell me where I can find Robert Burns?’

‘Which one? Robert Burns, plumber and heating engineer, Robert Burns, the dearly beloved infant son of Margaret, Robert Burns, one time teacher of English, Sir Robert Burns,…’

‘…the poet,’ I interrupted. ‘Scotland’s Bard.’

‘Aw him,’ replied the angel. ‘Follow the mists until you find him. He’s aye staring at his feet and muttering.’ And why not, I thought? Of course he would be still writing his immortal poetry.

Then I saw him. He was sitting on a grassy knoll, with his chin resting on his fist and his eyes gazing ahead. A perfect sight, a vision of our greatest poet at work. I stood quietly, not daring to interrupt his reverie.

This was the moment I had been waiting for. This was my destiny. There he was, Robert Burns, the Bard of Scotland, still communing with his Muse.

I stood there in silence. Unfortunately, my stomach gurgled noisily.

‘Got a wee touch o’ wind in the baggie?’ were his first immortal words.

‘Mr. – er – Burns,’ I stammered, my face reddening with embarrassment at the thought of what deathless prose my previous night’s chicken vindaloo had spoiled, ‘I’ve been granted a short visit to speak with you.’

‘Are you frae Hell?’ His face brightened visibly. ‘Any chance o’ getting me a transfer oot o’ here?’

I was transfixed.

‘Why would you want to go there?’

‘Bit o’ life, ye ken.’

I thought at first he winked, but it must have been a trick of the light.

‘Unless of course, you fancy a bit of houghmagandie yersel?’

I recognised the old Scots word though its precise meaning escaped me for a moment. But the wink this time was unmistakable, accompanied as it was by a nudge in the ribs. I understood. He was going to sing to me.

‘I’d love that,’ I enthused. ‘Do you want me to join in? Or would you rather I just sat back and let you perform by yourself?’

‘Just do what you feel like, hen,’ he said. ‘I’m no that fussy after all this time.’

He took my hand.

 ‘You’d better watch him,’ a cherub said cheekily as he passed by, hitching up his cloud. ‘He’s only got one thing on his mind.’

Of course he had. How else could he produce such phrasing, such sentiments, such beautiful lyrics if his mind was not constantly in the act of creation?

‘Mr. Burns,’ I began again, ‘or may I call you Rabbie?’

‘Why?’

‘Well, everybody else does. Rabbie Burns. You’re well-known.’

The swear word exploded from him. An Anglo-Saxon one that I was shocked to hear coming from him. 

‘Who tellt on me then? Was it that bitch o’ … naw, naw, it was her wi’ the big…’ His hands described two round objects. ‘It was, wasn’t it?’

I looked at him blankly. He drew himself up to his full height, which was less than I’d expected from his portrait, and peered up into my face.

‘Who was it?’

‘Nobody,’ I tried to reassure him. ‘I only meant that you’re well known because of your poetry. You’re famous.’

‘Ma poetry? Are you still reading it?’

‘Oh yes,’ I sighed, and bursting into song, I gave him the opening lines of his loveliest.

O, my luve is like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June…

He didn’t seem to like it and muttered something about eldritch skriechs.  

‘What else do you ken?’

‘Tam o’ Shanter, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Address to a Haggis, To a Mouse, Scots Wha Hae, Ca’ the Yowes, Auld Lang Syne, Ae Fond Kiss…’ I paused for breath. ‘John Anderson, my Jo, Holy Wullie’s Prayer, To a Mountain daisy, To a Louse…’

Burns’ draw dropped.

‘You mean, it’s lasted aw this time? Aw these wee bits o’ scribbling? Ah cannae believe it.’

‘Yes, your poems are known throughout the world and Auld Lang Syne is sung everywhere and there are Burns’ Suppers held world-wide on your birthday and not only that, I’m here to invite you to the Robert Burns Celebration Festival.’

His eyes lit up and he laughed.

‘Aye there’ll be a fair wheen o’ Burns in Alloway by noo, are there no?’ He nudged me in the ribs again.

I paused. ‘Yes there’s…. and …’ I mentioned two of Alloway’s worthies. ‘But I don’t know if they’re descended from your line.’

‘They probably are. I did my bit to help the population roon aboot.’ And he winked again.

That was just like Burns. To be so generous in helping out those less well off than himself. Man’s humanity to man, to paraphrase his own immortal words.

‘Ah’m looking forward to seeing the auld toon again,’ he continued. ‘There’s nothing to do up here aw day long.  Mind you…’ He looked me up and down. ‘… you’d do at a pinch. Ye cannae be fussy aboot an old raincoat on a wet night.’

I pondered over the deeper significance of his utterings and was unaware of his arm moving around my waist until suddenly, he pulled me towards him and planted a slobby kiss on my lips.

‘Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,’ he began.

I tried to push him away but though he was small, he was strong – and desperate. His hands wrestled with my Marks and Sparks pure wool skirt and tangled with my underwear. 

‘Mr. Burns!’ I shrieked. ‘Remember who you are!’

He obviously did for he redoubled his efforts and pushed me to the heavenly ground.

I tried to remember what the lady self-defence expert had suggested when she spoke at the Ayrshire Ladies Lunch Club and attempted to knee him but unfortunately missed.

His hands were definitely where they shouldn’t have been.

‘This won’t hurt,’ he was saying. ‘This won’t hurt.’

‘No, no,’ I murmured as my strength failed, while part of me kept whispering, ‘A man’s a man for a’ that…’

‘No,’ I said more loudly. ‘You are hurting me.’

A jolt of pain shot through me and I opened my eyes. I found I was staring at the underside of the number 77 Express bus to Glasgow.

‘This won’t hurt,’ a voice repeated and I looked into the face of an ambulance man who was gently moving me on to a stretcher.

‘You had a lucky escape,’ he said.

I nodded. I certainly had. 

However, notwithstanding his unfortunate..er… behaviour, may I present to you, Mr Robert Burns.

Celebrating Robert Burns’ Birthday

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January 25th 1759 was as stormy as it is today and Burns celebrated it by writing

Twas then a blast o’ Janwar’ win’
Blew hansel in on Robin.

Burns Suppers are now held all over the world and here’s a bit from my book A Last Journey where we attend an unusual Australian Burns’ Supper.

The trouble was, we weren’t Scottish enough. We had only been in Penola a day when a man called round to ask Bill to join the local pipe band. His face registered incomprehension when Bill confessed to being unable to play the bagpipes. 

‘But I thought you were Scottish,’ he spluttered.

These inhabitants of the small South Australian town turned out to be more Scottish than us. Penola had been settled in the 1840’s by waves of English, Irish and Scots immigrants drawn to the offers of free land. Alexander Cameron from Lochaber was the first, setting up Penola Station in 1844. Another, John Riddoch from Turriff, had first gone to the goldfields to make his money. In 1861, he had come to the area where he had bought 35,000 acres. He had recognised the importance of the red earth, the terra rossa, for growing grapes and encouraged the settlers to plant vines. His foresight ensured the prosperity of the area, Coonawarra wines now being world class.

But there was a price the settlers had to pay. The older part of graveyard in Penola was filled with the graves of those first immigrants. Young men and women who had come from Tain and Aberfeldy, Dumfries and Lewis. Their infant children of whom there were many, and their older children who had managed to survive the difficult first five years only to die of some fever or snakebite or accident with the cattle. It made hard reading. Some names were still evident in the town – McLeod and MacKay, Meikle and Burns. Their descendants still lived in Penola, if perhaps not wealthy, then managing to live a reasonable life far beyond the dreams of their ancestors.

They kept up the old traditions too. Or at least, they had versions of them, passed down through generations and adapted and modified to meet the circumstances.

So it was that we found ourselves at a Burns Supper one November 30th. It was early summer and already the temperature had risen into the nineties and stayed there well into the evening. Bill, despite his inabilities musically, had been asked to do the Address to the Haggis. He wasn’t keen. He had never been to a Burns Supper. He had never read much of Burns apart from having to learn To a Mouse for a school poetry competition in Primary 5. He had left Scotland to get away from the kitsch of tartan and shortbread. I had to dragoon him into accepting.

The evening began in the local Church of Scotland with communal singing. We started with On the Bonny Banks of Lock Lo-mont, followed by It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and climaxing with Danny Boy. Eclectic and surprisingly good fun given the setting. We then retired to the church hall where Bill was to do his piece. Dressed as he was in his best pale blue zoot suit, he was only slightly put out to see that he was the only male not in the kilt. He didn’t possess one. He had never even hired one. He had no intention of ever wearing one. 

However he did his part with remarkable aplomb. The piper led the procession in (was that the job they had hoped he’d fill?) and the haggis followed in tartan splendour. It was set in front of him and he recited the verses with the assistance of the crib cards I had prepared for him. (‘What on earth does it all mean? I don’t understand a word of it.’ ‘Just learn it, will you?’)

Bill stabbed the haggis with the kitchen knife provided (it went in with a satisfying splurch) and duly mangled the beast. It was then taken away and to our surprise, the buffet began. Sandwiches, chicken legs, sausage rolls, salad, all followed by the best Australian pavlovas, sickly sweet and soft and drenched with cream. 

Then came the haggis. On cocktail sticks. And mercifully in bite size pieces. After the tooth rotting pavlova, it tasted, well, out of place. Some of the guests refused to touch it, treating it like some outlandish foreign muck. As it is. In Australia at any rate. 

The night gave us many a laugh in the forthcoming months. How those daft Aussies didn’t know how or when to hold a Burns Supper. How they couldn’t tell the difference between the Scots and Irish heritage. Conveniently, we forgot our own ignorance and denial of Scotland.

Time, maturity, whatever, have lessened our ribaldry. Have given us an understanding of what it meant. It wasn’t a celebration of Burns, or of Scotland. It was an act of remembrance of all those names in the graveyard. Of James McLeod from Lewis, of Robina Meikle from Tain, of countless, nameless, infant children. Of all those brave souls who had set out from Scotland to face the unknown. Who had left behind family and friends, knowing that the chances of ever seeing them again were virtually nil. Who were prepared to face great hardship in order to attempt to forge a better life for their families.

They had a long hard struggle in a strange environment where nothing existed that they were familiar with. No identifiable trees or animals, save those they brought with them. No rains or mists or mountains or stretches of open sea or lochs. No blackbird song or gulls’ cry, no gaelic save their own speech, no tales but those they told themselves.

Is it any wonder they clung to the familiar traditions and habits? That they tried to keep burning that which identified them as Scottish? 

So on each Burns Night, I raise my glass to them, to those pioneers who showed such bravery and strength and resolution. I celebrate the character of those long dead Scots and the legacy they left behind. 

Slainte. Good on you, mate.

Available from lumphananpress.co.uk or Amazon

‘A Last Journey’ Launched!

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This is the story of our lives abroad and home in Scotland before Lewy Body Dementia got its claws into Bill and destroyed his life.

The launch was held at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh where friends and family gathered to hear me talk about the book and how it came about. Alex Howard, Creative Engagement Coordinator for the theatre was the emcee and introduced the readings and took questions from the floor.

A Last Journey is available from https://lumphananpress.co.uk/bookshop/ or from Amazon.

Ann Burnett’s Memoir ‘A Last Journey’ Unveiled

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Award winning writer Ann Burnett is releasing her memoir A Last Journey, at the Festival Theatre on October 15th 2024.

Age Scotland have given Ann an award towards its publication.

This is a touching, funny and moving story of Ann and her husband Bill’s life together before Lewy Body dementia took him over, and her struggles to look after him until his death.

Dementia. It wasn’t what the couple expected at all. They had ‘imagined themselves doddering along till their eighties’ but dementia had other ideas.

Inveterate travellers, living abroad and experiencing life in different countries, they suddenly became confined to their home because of dementia and lockdown  

A Wee Taster

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Just a wee bit from my memoir, A Last Journey, to be published in October. It’s from the introduction.

Our Golden Wedding in Dumfries House, 2016

My husband, Bill, and I imagined ourselves doddering along till we reached our eighties. Beyond that was a mist, fading away. But in our mid-seventies all that changed. Bill was diagnosed with dementia.

‘I’m shocked,’ he said to the consultant. ‘I didn’t think anything was wrong.’

But I knew. For several years something had been niggling away at me. Something wasn’t quite right. Forgetfulness you can put down to ageing, but this was more than that. For our Golden Wedding in 2016, I’d bought printed badges bearing the names of all our guests, even having different-coloured backgrounds denoting whether they were family or friends. I thought it would benefit our guests, coming as they did from a variety of our interests and activities, even including Bill’s new family members, who he’d only discovered the previous year. But really it was because Bill couldn’t remember names.

I even moved us across the country to be nearer our sons ‘just in case’. It took me until 2019 to persuade him to visit the GP and at least ask about his ‘problem’.

What is dementia? Alzheimer’s, the most common form, is what people usually think of when dementia is mentioned. But there are over 200 types of dementia and more may well be discovered. Every patient is different; they have their own unique symptoms and presentation of the disease. And the symptoms change and evolve as the disease progresses.

At the moment there is no cure. Every few weeks there is a media fanfare as yet another new miracle drug is claimed as the panacea for dementia. What they actually mean is that the drug might slow down the progression of the illness if it is caught early enough. A big if. Getting an early diagnosis is not easy these days. Doctors seem to be loath to actually do all the tests required to be able to say with any certainty that dementia is present. Is money and lack of resources the problem?

And dementia is terminal. It may be a long slow deterioration or, as in Bill’s case, a rapid gallop towards the end. For him, there were almost exactly three years from diagnosis to death. 

But instead, I’ll focus on Bill’s drive and determination to continue living, despite a doctor’s prognosis which gave him only 18 months, as it was in Bill’s nature to put his head down and charge at whatever he faced, however much it came back to knock him down again and again.

There are always two people involved in dementia: the sufferer and the carer. Much is spoken about help for people with dementia, but help for carers is much thinner on the ground. Although dementia sucks the personality out of the sufferer, it reduces the carer as well. Weeks, months, years of caring leave the carer in a state of limbo, neither a partner nor a professional carer, stuck between two states of being, unable to participate fully in the activities and hobbies they enjoyed before, with only the knowledge that ahead lies the death of the loved one and an emptiness beyond.

The Coach Trip (Part 2)

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The hotel is owned by the coach company and set up to cope with oldies. We all go in to eat at certain times according to the bus we came on, and sit in the same seats. The staff are all young and foreign and quite delightful, serving us quickly and efficiently with our meals. They are also trained to spot anomalies. One guy, travelling alone and obviously with chronic illness, didn’t appear for a meal and the staff reported this and the receptionist phoned his room to check on him. Fortunately he was just tired and not hungry. His table was right next to us and he was sitting beside a couple who neither spoke to each other or to him throughout all our meals. I wouldn’t have wanted to join them for such meals either.

The hotel at Loch Tummel

Every day we climbed on our bus, Donnie the driver, head counting us to make sure he had the right number, and more importantly, the right people. One or two wandered on to our bus by mistake and had to be gently pointed in the right direction of their transport.

Donnie’s big bus

Donnie knew every single-track road in the area. It was wicked fun to watch the expressions of the drivers who met our large, far too broad bus for the road, on a bend and had to stop suddenly and squeeze past while we sat aloof and rather smug.

We travelled to various tourist places each day and were ejected from the bus to explore for a few hours. Pitlochry was an interesting stop with the dam and salmon leap close by. However the salmon weren’t leaping, it not being the time of year so we adjourned to the visitor centre set high above the dam and with magnificent views from the cafeteria. There is also an exhibition area explaining how the dam was built and how it works to provide hydroelectric power with interactive models so you can produce your own power or make recalcitrant wooden salmon leap upstream.

Pitlochry Dam

It was raining in Aberfeldy so we nipped into an unusual shop run by an Irish artist, Ryan Hannigan. He has some old printing presses in the shop that he uses to print his own designs. He is also a musician (you can buy his CD or vinyl there too) and he recycles old uniforms and army gear into stylish clothing for sale.

The site of the battle of Culloden meant an early start but well worth it. The story of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his epic attempt to wrest the throne from the English is vividly told in the visitor centre and you can experience the sights and sounds of the terrible fight all around you. Then to the battlefield itself with flags marking where the Jacobites stood against their enemy in a desperate attempt to halt the retreat.

A gravestone at Culloden

After all that blood and guts it was a peaceful afternoon in Aviemore where Sheila met us and took us to her new home and lunch.

It was a quick few days and on the way home, Donnie stopped in Callander to allow us to browse through all the wee artisan craft shops, a perfect way to spend a wet afternoon.

It was an easy experience of a holiday. No hassle, food, accommodation and trips all organised and running smoothly. Even the weather was kind on the whole. We were taken care of and driven about very comfortably. I saw parts of Scotland I’d never visited and others I hadn’t seen for a very long time. 

The Coach Trip (Part 1)

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I’d just finished reading The Coach Trip by Izzy Bromley aka Imogen Clark when a friend asked if I would like to go with her on – a coach trip! Me? A coach trip along with a bunch of oldies? Except – I am an oldie now.

So in the spirit of adventure or at least, trying something different I agreed. It was only four days and we would stay at an hotel and travel around every day and return to it for dinner and bed. So I wouldn’t have to unpack and repack and breakfast and dinner were included. My first mistake was not putting the label supplied on my case. “There’s always one,” moaned Donnie the driver, as we set off on a mini tour of central Scotland picking up other adventurers. Eventually we were all accounted for except for one poor soul that Donnie hadn’t been told about and was left languishing on a pavement until the company sent a taxi to pick him up and chase after us to Perth. We crossed the Forth Road bridge on our way, the three bridges looking glorious from the coach window.

The First Forth Bridge

We didn’t see the best of Perth as the road beside the river was closed so we wandered round the shops, had lunch and dithered until it was time to get back on the bus. Donnie stopped at the Queen’s View overlooking Loch Tummel before heading for the hotel situated on its banks. There is nothing more beautiful than Scotland in the sunshine and no wonder Queen Victoria like it so much. Mind you, it must have been a fair trek by carriage to get there. Or had steam trains reached there by then?

The Queen’s View at Loch Tummel

We settled into our rooms and headed out to grab a seat along the shore of Loch Tummel at the edge of the lawn. We had packed some cocktails and with it being so hot, we had to knock back several before dinner.

And at dinner, we had classic peach melba with tinned peaches! I have a story in my collection, Take a Leaf out of My Book, entitled Peach Melba, about four old dears who escape from a care home and have a meal out with peach melba as dessert. Was I turning into one of them?

Getting the Old Brain into Gear again!

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I’ve been writing again! The incentive was the Scottish Association of Writers conference programme setting out all the competitions to enter if you attended. So step 1, I booked my place for the 2023 conference in March and step 2, began writing. I won’t say what I wrote and in what categories I submitted (ok some are old efforts freshened up and edited) as it’s all anonymous and we won’t hear the results until the actual conference.

Not only has it got me back writing, but I’m looking forward to meeting up with friends I haven’t seen in ages and wondering if the room parties are still part of the weekend. How many folk can you squeeze into a bedroom? And how many bottles and packets of crisps can be consumed? And that’s on top of packing away glorious meals three times a day along with elevenses and afternoon tea.

And then there’s the talks and the discussions and the workshops! A stupendous few days which set you up for the rest of the year.

I’ve also got myself a wee job as a researcher for the Dementia Friendly podcast project at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh. I interview various people who work in the theatre or who are associated with the DementiArts programme. I summarise it and hand it to Willy, the podcast presenter who uses it to conduct a recorded interview with them for the podcast. You can listen to the first one using the above link.

I also write a column for the DementiArts magazine that the theatre brings out. It’s called Hidden Lives and I tell the stories of people living with dementia and what surprising and wonderful stories they are.

I’ve also booked a place with a conference on How to Get Published run by the Writers and Artists along with the Open University in Edinburgh in March. Another chance to pick up tips and ideas as well as doing a bit of networking.

And if all that doesn’t get me started, then I’ll give up!

A Coronavirus Birthday

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By now about a third of the population will have had a birthday under lockdown and it was my turn at the weekend. I wondered how it would go and in the event, it went very well with flowers and food and plenty of chat. In fact, there was a simultaneous rendition of Happy Birthday from London and Toronto which was almost in unison!

birthday 2020

On top of everything else, what should thump through the letterbox but the latest edition of the Highlander magazine, containing not one but two of my articles, along with articles by a couple of my writer friends, Rosemary Gemmell and Anne-Mary Paterson.

cover

My articles were on two local subjects, Cockenzie House and Tantallon Castle, both of which we had visited before lockdown.

cockenzie p1  Tantallon

Also in the mail was a cheque for another of my articles on the history of knitting in Scotland which will appear in a later issue. This was a fascinating topic to research, initially triggered by Rosie Thorpe, an archivist with Historic Environment Scotland,who, on taking up knitting during lockdown, decided to see what her archives held on the subject. My own searches uncovered a murder and two hangings associated with knitting – who knew it was such a bloodthirsty subject!

I’ve also had a blog tour for Festival Fireworks which I just may have mentioned previously! I’d never had one before so it was quite a learning curve for me but very enjoyable. Thanks to Kelly Lacey for organising it all.

Festival Fireworkds