susie_flo | Judgment Day

I have become a pillar of the community - who'd have thunk it. A few weeks ago the very nice owner of our local cheese shop contacted me out of the blue and asked whether I would take on the honour - and terrifying responsibility - of judging the the children's poster competition for the St Margarets Christmas Fair. (I am deemed to be a 'local artist' hoorah!)

So of course I said yes and before I knew it, judgment day had arrived. As it turned out, the reality of judging proved to be rather tough... for starters there were billions of entries, many of which were just as good as each other. Then there was the problem of working out the relative merits of those that were technically accomplished against those that showed originality, humour, creative flair or a startling use of glitter glue... while trying to weed out the ones that appeared to have been executed by a 35 year old while their frustrated child looked on with impotent felt-tip pens.

Eventually, having shortlisted 25 of the best entries, and with much deliberation, I chose an overall winner + runner for each age group. But given the arbitrariness of the final decision, it was agreed that all of the shortlisted ones will get a token prize too.

But now I am worrying about the non-winners... how upset will they be? What about the ones who were not even shortlisted? Some of them were good... but I couldn't shortlist all of 'em. What is the probability of being letter-bombed by their angry mothers? Yeek! Maybe there should be a witness protection programme for things like this. As far as I am aware, there is no anonymity... announcements will be done on a loudspeaker on the evening of the fair. I might have to go in disguise.

Still, my halo of cosy, local tweeness has not yet worn off. I could get used to this... maybe I should marry a vicar and join the WI! :-p