Yes, the annual Christmas light display at the Bedgbury National Pinetum, near Flimwell. Battleaxe joined the Christmas outing for RSPCA Mallydams staff and volunteers. It was a clear, dry, mild evening, and the experience was spectacular. Battleaxe would totally recommend.
This is a quick post – there is a lot going on just now!
We all went in a little coach from the Wildlife Centre – dear, blessed Philosopher gave me and fellow volunteer Wendy a lift down there because we wimped out of driving down Peter James Lane in the dark. It is bad enough in the light…
The staff, on average, are around 35 years younger than some of us volunteers, but I think we were all looking forward to it equally as much.
As we know by now, Battleaxe loves lights. The last big outside display I went to was about a million years ago at the Walsall Arboretum near Brum. Technology has moved on considerably since then. No longer any illuminated gnomes, plastic Santa sleighs, strings of fairy lights in the trees. Instead, think huge lasers pulsating out ever-changing light effects, streams of coloured light running up and down the trunks of the huge old trees, water fountain displays dancing to music, ever-changing fibre-optic sparkly trails of ‘fungi’ and ‘mycelium’ rippling across the forest floor – it was beautiful.
Click the link below and you’ll get a video of the dancing fountains – don’t forget to turn up the volume.
Reflections on the water were very effective…
There were plenty of catering facilities – a sugar-rush fest of mulled and spiced this that and the other, hot chocolate laced with Baileys, marshmallows, doughnuts – I felt quite manic by the end. Oh, and loos, too.
One thing I would say, the trail might not be great for tiny children or anyone with mobility difficulties. It is not very hilly, but quite long – at least two and a half miles.
It is a refreshing change for Battleaxe to hang out with a crowd of younger people! Here are some of us….
