Last Friday we went down the road to Hove
for the Tots100 Summer Party at Zippo's Circus. It was my first blogging event,
and I was rather nervous. It didn't help that we made a stop to purchase a car
seat on the way over which took a lot longer than we expected, and so we were
among the last to arrive. The children were thrilled when we signed in and they
were given some light up plastic toys, my husband was thrilled to discover that
we could eat as much food from the snack van as we liked, including candy floss
and popcorn, and I was thrilled when several people came to me and actually
greeted me by name, having recognised me from my photo! Stuffed with junk food,
we were taken inside the tent and seated at the ringside for a quick
introduction to the circus. We met one of the horses, and learned a bit about
how the budgies are trained for the show.
Then we were taken out the back
to see the rest of the horses, while some of the older children were having a go
at juggling and having their faces painted. I'd been hoping for a go on the
trapeze but unfortunately it was far too popular, which is probably a good thing
on reflection.
Then we took our seats for the
circus. It was at around this point that I realised our children (3 1/2 and 1)
are probably a bit too little for a circus. Although Harry was able to
understand what was going on, he insisted on sitting on my knee and he wouldn't
keep still. He refused to eat any of the snacks that we had, and he was also
fascinated by the toilets in a caravan, necessitating repeated trips. Mia was
tired, and wriggled about whinging, only falling into the exhausted, quiet state
about five minutes before the show finished. As a consequence unfortunately I
have no photographs of the show!
Harry loved the clowns, he was in hysterics
at the slapstick humour when the clown fell about on the trampoline. Personally
I was fascinated by the performing budgies and amazed at the limbo dancers. The
grand finale was stuntmen on motorbikes riding around and upside down inside a
metal globe, and this certainly caught Harry's attention. There were plenty of
different things to see, and it had a very traditional feel to it, with circus
acts like juggling and the trapeze.
Perhaps we will wait a few years before we attempt a circus again, but we still had a really fun day out. Thanks to Tots100 for organising it and to Zippo's Circus for making us so welcome.
Ah well, at least you got to meet a few peeps. I am still very jealous of that.
ReplyDeleteI didn't really have time to chat to people for very long, but it was nice to put some faces to names! It was a practice run for Britmums, where I can't hide behind my family!
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