So the season of mellow fruitfulness, giant fun-size chocolate bar bags and very loud bangs is upon us. If you can find time to walk in the Forest you’ll be rewarded by the Autumn colours, but according to the forecast, you’d better make it sharpish as it’s due to get a tad windy and wind is the natural enemy of dead and dying leaves. Hopefully wind won’t be an issue on Saturday 7th November as the annual Rotary Firework Extravaganza takes off. To be entirely honest I’m not really sure what the Rotary Club of Lymington do when they’re not letting off fireworks, but there seems to be a symmetry between their name and visual pyrotechnics. OK, maybe that’s just me then…

A nice chap at the club gave me a little background as to why they even bother when bad weather like last year can rather ruin it all. Apparently Rotary runs their fireworks display more than anything else as an option for families to go to a firework display inexpensively, and to prevent the risk of horrific injuries which are suffered by children every year. They also try and make some money which is passed on to local charities. All most commendable.

The fireworks are supplied by Graham Butler who is a local licensed Pyrotechnist. Being told this did make me imagine just how one trains as a Pyrotechnist to obtain a license. Do you start with sparklers and work your way up through bangers, squibs and catherine wheels to the really big stuff? Just wondered. And what’s an extravaganza without food and drink. And trampolines and a bouncy castle and rides for toddlers and a climbing wall. Did I mention food and drink? Hot dogs & burgers, hot and cold drinks, candy floss and toffee apples. And all for a very reasonable cost of £4.00 for adults, £2.00 for children and children under 4 free. I assume that’s the age of the child rather than an unfair levy on families with four or more children.

So it is a real community event run by local people for local people and supported by lots of local businesses which are, in no particular order, New Forest District Council, Lymington and Pennington Town Council, Farwells, Hampshire Constabulary, John Pyatt Concreting, Hampshire Fire and Rescue, Peter Cooper Removals (personally highly recommended removal and storage company), Lymington Precision Engineers (who appear to be taking over Lymington one commercial unit at a time!), The Girl Guides, 1308 Squadron Air Training Corps, Army Cadet Force, Billy Cole and above all Graham Butler of Excel Pyrotechnics.

If you aim to go and can’t get there on foot, then you’ll be very pleased to know that parking on the common is free. For a map, CLICK HERE.

One of the problems with having elderly relatives living with you is that you tend to see rather more of the NHS than perhaps you might ordinarily wish for. Not that I am complaining, by and large we have enjoyed a very high quality service when required. Of course with a disabled wife and an elderly and increasingly infirm MiL we may have had more call on such services than the average household. That doesn’t make me an expert, more a frequent flyer.

There is one group however whom have provided us with jaw-dropping response times which the government could only dream of. I speak of course of the ambulance crews which we have regrettably needed on a number of occasions as gravity got the better of the MiL. To be honest with her degree of disability it has really become a matter of when, not if, she will need the emergency services again. At the moment however, she is being cared for by Southampton General Hospital as there was no room at Lymington.

So anyway, without exception the bright green clad ambulance crew and Rapid Response drivers and motorcyclists have been courteous, extremely helpful and an all round calming influence. Before you ask, no until they turned up I didn’t know there was such a thing as a rapid response paramedic. The things you learn through adversity eh?

I know it’s all the rage to put down our Health Service, especially if you are an American and seemingly only know about it from re-runs of Casualty 1907 on BBC Worldwide. But in modern parlance I would like to ‘Big Up’ the NHS. It may be lacking in certain areas, but as far as we are concerned they are doing all right by us. So there.

If only I could report the same with regards to the Hampshire County Council. Someone has been rationalising. And from that rationalising has been born the centralised contact facility Hantsdirect based in Fareham. I suppose they get brownie points for the centre being not only in the same country, but even in the right county. But it’s small comfort when you need to talk to someone in the Town Hall in Lymington and you have to call some pleasant but unyielding operator whose programmed response is to enquire as to whether you have ‘checked the website’ to see if your answer was there. Incidentally, why is anything including the word ‘Direct’ seldom anything of the sort?

Before you lable me as some grumpy old man (less of the old if you don’t mind), I will allow that such things are inevitable and so if you need to contact the council, try the Hantsdirect list of strangely similar numbers here. One thing we did find out recently, astonishingly local GP’s and school head teachers also have to go through the call centre. However if you have a magic SWIFT reference number, you don’t have to fill in the details each time you ring up, just quote the number.