Friday 28 June 2013

Rhubarb

There is sadly no more rhubarb growing on the farm - the winters are just too cold, no this rhubarb is the newly-named nanny goat. Jack has named 3 goats: Adam, Eve and .. rhubarb! I caught up with an old acquaintance at Hebden Bridge festival last Sunday. the Spurting Man certainly has an unusual act. I had never seen his show in the daytime before - slightly scaled down but still funny. Aislbie's revels was based on the 1765 opening of Vauxhall Gardens in London. It was huge. I believe there were lions in cages, poets, plays and musicians, including a tripleharper. London's society flocked to see all sorts of weird and wonderful things! Ours was held in the Water Gardens of Studley Royal a few years ago. Every performer dressed in Georgian dress and my daughter and I made our costumes and played harp in the grounds. We had to watch our backs as two 'angels' painted gold in nappies with plastic bows and arrows would creep up and shoot their arrows at us! The Grand finale was Handel's Fireworks. Over 300 performers would parade around the longest lake with flaming torches in the dark, As the final firework sounded and the music faded we extinguished the torches in a massive 'Mexican' wave into the water. The water was alive with fish swimming as fast as they could to the other side to get away from the flames. The Spurting Man was a favourite at the revels. Poor Jack went to school on Monday morning full of it, desperate to tell his 8 yr old friends ... trying to explain this act is difficult to say the least and his baffled friends commented 'rubbish'. We quickly printed the photos off and Jack returned to school with 'evidence' the following day!