Saturday 25 July 2015

Picnic at 'the beautiful place'

But where are the owners of these wellies?
A great birthday party/barbecue with the entire Parsons clan at the 'beautiful place' on the edge of Dartmoor. I think it was so successful because we had taken suitable precautions and done a full Health and Safety Risk Assessment of the area before venturing down the track to the riverbank.  As part of this, and to prove that we took our responsibilities seriously, we did a 'disaster scenario evaluation' which went along these lines:

Who would you rescue first if you were alone with the children and:
* One fell into the campfire and started burning.
* One fell off the rope swing and broke a leg in an obvious fashion.
* One fell in the river and started drowning.


After much discussion, we decided that:
* Although very painful and rather unsightly, a broken leg was not a life threatening condition, so dealing with this problem would take the lowest priority.
* An expert amongst us was insistent that as it takes a while to drown and, although the frenetic splashing would be somewhat distracting, diving into the freezing river would not be the top priority.
* This leaves dealing with the child attracted moth-like to the fire and the sizzling sausages and burgers.


What would you have done?

Satisfied that we had covered all eventualities, we went ahead and had a jolly good time. And no child was burnt or drowned and all left with a full complement of limbs intact. But we knew what we would have done if the worst had happened.
Where better to dry wet clothes?

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