We went to see this lovely little traditional circus. Such an antidote to the mass Uncle Sam variety, which is the only sort I have ever seen before, you know the ones, where the interval is longer than the show so that severe boredom and child persuasion means you buy all sorts of over priced junk, including having a £5 photo taken with a guy dressed as Spiderman. And so this show was such a lovely lovely difference. A tiny tent, with a tiny ring and a massively entertaining show. A proper instrumental opera singing band, wonderful costumes (1920's French theme) and every adult in the show was a proper artist or street performer. Right at the start they had a dressed up performer strolling two real live dressed up old fashioned babies around in an old-old Silver Cross pram with double hoods. Isaac and I had eyes popping out of our heads - are they Real babies??? Very funny. The caravans were all olde worlde maroon ones, the snack tent featured huge polka dot teapots and china. It was pretty cute. And just to top off the excitement - guess who sat behind me? Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall! Really. But this is because he is here for the Hay Festival (perhaps he has a new book out? I don't know.....) Quite exciting to be sleeve to sleeve with a star (he looks rather older in the flesh than on the screen but his kids were all shiny happy blond things), and I saw him eat cake from the cake tent and I doubt it was organic *gasp* :)
Anyway, I highly recommend the Gifford Circus, if it comes near you be sure to go. My boys thought it was the best they had ever been to and I totally agreed (we have been to loads as Isaac dreams of becoming a clown one day). Can't fathom ever wanting to go to a regular circus again. Check out the Gallery link on the website for some really amazing pictures of the performance my dh took the boys to the previous time it visited us (I was at home with the baby that year:) )
9 comments:
That looks really lovely, sadly they don't plan on coming near our neck of the woods, but really good to see proper circuses do exist!! Know what you mean about the huge intervals and rubbishy toys at other circuses and also, why have the music so loud that you can't speak and any sleeping babies are woken up with a fright!!!
Hi Claire,
we came over your way at the weekend camping and we saw that circus, but didnt go to it - maybe we should have! we had such a lovely time and realised how beautiful it is round there. Hay is a fantastic place, we fell in love with the deli there too & the boys had fun playing in the river. We found a lovely campsite in the woods which allowed camp fires in Winforton, shame its so far or we'd be coming back :)
Lucy
Lucy - when you do come back let me know and maybe we can meet up :)
And yeah - Hay is lovely, I love that it is full of independent shops, no chains and lots of lovely bookshops. Plus the ice cream parlour - i mean sheeps milk ice cream? It's perfect for my cow dairy free son. Plus they do sorbets with real fruit for vegans. I can't imagine living anywhere with that except maybe Brighton? I dunno. I do like Hay :) Did you go to The Globe? My son has chess club and street dancing classes there each week, it's a cool place to sit and chat for the mummies! Too cool for me maybe, it's the one time a week I actually look in the mirror on my way out of the door and think man I look messy and put a necklace or something on (otherwise I am always just garden scruffy :lol).
The deli! Yeah we go there lots,my sons are well known there :)
Was Jenny Valentine working there when you were in (have you read her kids/teen books ? - they are fab), she's the thin blond one with wavy tied back hair.
We had a look at the Globe but didnt go in, that was the lady that served us yes! I will go and google her now, she was very nice & so was the cake :) my boys spent ages in Rose's childrens bookshop and we had a quick look in at the festival to see what was on, I only saw prof Robert Winston and he appeared to be buying a copy of his own book! Had no idea it was the festival when we booked to come this weekend. I think we all wanted to move there, in fact dh was looking up a bookcase company he saw at the festival online yesterday (he is a cabinet maker)
Would like to have had more time to explore, hopefully will make it back later in the year
...forgot to add, the boys *loved* the sheeps milk ice cream!
Honestly though you will have to come at a regular time, I drove into Hay today and was overwhelmed at the busyness. Usually there's about ten people on the streets at any given time. This is the busiest week of the year for Hay! I love it in the dead of winter when we are the only ones around :lol But Thursday, market day is a quiet affair to with no more than 50 people there the entire day and space to sit in the castle grounds for an ice cream.
Glad you had a nice weekend!
Looks like alot of fun. I don't think we have anything like that here in the U.S. If we do I certainly haven't seen them.
Blessings
diane
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