Maybe one bubble can say a lot - but a wild stream of bubbles from the loan bubble-machine is bound to draw attention to this attraction. To hold that attention, once the young children have exhausted the fun of chasing and popping the bubbles, there is equipment for children to blow serious bubbles of various sizes, and, if someone is so disposed, a recipe and equipment to make bubbles large enough to match a child’s height. (This will take some pre-fayre practice).
Going deeper in thought about bubbles, apart from reflecting on the immediate joy they give children (and not a few adults), they are a small wonder of the sciences of physics and light, incorporating the mathematical properties of a sphere, the vital properties of surface tension, the balancing of internal and external air pressure, the iridescence which can show all the colours of the spectrum/ rainbow and at their last, the effect of gravity after each bubble’s brief flight
Children get a timed ‘slot’ to explore the bubble blowing on offer.
And in keeping with the Eco-themes of the sideshows, we can perhaps think of the fragility of each bubble as symbolic of the fragility of our home sphere, our planet, whilst dirty fuels remain.
OILY BEACH
Today’s sideshow derives from an experience many of us will have had, of finding a beach we love sullied by large globs of tarry oil which are quite vile, leaving thick deposits of oil on shoes or clothes or on the skin of a curious child.
Usually we will have no idea of the source which could be a major oil-spill, the deliberate discharge of oil from a tanker, to lighten load, or from a leak from an old or damaged tanker. Whichever it is, the mess it leaves on the beach will be s nothing compared to the destruction it will have caused on its journey to the beach. Sea-birds fouled and unable to fly, fish poisoned in the filth of the spill and who knows what damage done in the unseen parts of the sea bed. Yet another by-product of the dirty-fuel industry.
So, we reflect on this with numbered, scoring stones scattered, numbers down amidst large black-painted stones in a sand-tray, representing the disgusting disfiguring globs of useless oil.
Wait - No! Worse than useless - for who will clear them up? Not the fat-cat shareholders of the extractors of the poisonous lumps, but a local sea-side corporation, obliged to clear up the mess and spend taxpayers’ money to make the beaches we love, safe.
The concepts behind the sideshows will all be explained in a small pamphlet entitled ‘Our Sideshows: what they mean’, available to borrowers of the equipment. At the time of writing this post, the pamphlet is in embryo form.
For now, to better understand the purpose of the Eco-Fayre, go to The first Mini Eco Fayre entry that you will find HERE
