Floating away...

Sadly, MWH Mersey Basin Week is over for another year, but at least I managed to take my family to the grand finale on Sunday, when co-ordinators from the Mersey Basin Campaign lent a watery theme to the Hindu Mela at Platt Fields in Manchester.

Throughout the day our co-ordinators, Lucy and Hazel, and local artist Gowri Savoor, helped people make illumined artworks to be used after dark. These were very much in the tradition of Hindu festivals, which often feature floating candles, and looked quite wonderful gliding off on the ornamental lake.

It all brought back memories of backpacking in India and seeing rows of tiny candle-lit offerings floating off down a river or across a lake. Most memorably, in Rishikesh, which is where the Beatles spent their time in India in the 60s.

The Platt Fields lake had been specially cleaned just the previous weekend by the superb Friends of Platt Fields Park. This is the kind of Friends group other parks can only dream of – enthusiastic, energetic and imaginative. In fact, by coincidence in the same week we awarded them one of our Unilever Dragonfly awards for their work. There will be an interview with one of the members, Elsa Holmes, in the upcoming edition of our magazine, Source. Elsa runs the park’s eco-garden.

So as a lovely event featuring a watery spectacle, made possible in part by the hard work of local volunteers, the Mela was a fitting end to this year’s MWH Mersey Basin Week. Not to mention the fact that my daughters loved the kiddies fair rides, were spell-bound by the dancers in sparkly costumes and ate a whole curry each.

Photograph by Karen Wright.