A visit from the fireman...

The other day at the play scheme we had a visit from a fireman, he was a happy guy, full of jokes and laughter, which is what you need with children. He had a few videos to show, a bit of talking to do and then of course the obligatory dressing the children up in firemen gear. What he didn’t mention was that he wanted one of the volunteers to dress up too, as the “fire engine” needed a driver who apparently had to be older than 18, seeing as I was the only volunteer in that room the chore fell on me….
I had to wear the whole oufit, the trousers, the big boots, the jacket and yes the helmet, but no it didn’t stop there we had to pretend there was a fire, we had run to the engine, jump in, drive to a random location, jump out, run to the fire, and put it out with our “hoses”. Let me tell you this I have a new found respect for firemen….I was sweltering under the uniform, I felt there was a fire right there with me never mind at the random location, the boots were extremely heavy and running on the spot was no easy task and the helmet was too big, which when added to my headscarf and the headband underneath created a whole fire of it’s own…..and that was without a fire to fight back……but at least I wasn’t as unfortunate as one of the other volunteers, who dressed up as welephant…..

A few random fire facts

• Hairspray can set a smoke alarm off
• A fire engine HAS to be at the scene of the fire within 7 minutes of receiving the call
• There are two fire engines where I live and 9 fire-fighters

I’ve realised that throughout this post I’ve been saying firemen/man, when apparently the correct term is firefighters because there are women fire-fighters too…
(Apparently clip art is also aware of this, typing in fireman/men doesn’t come up with any pictures, but firefighter does, yet spell check is still in the dark ages , firefighter brings up the hated red squiggly line….)