8. Oh! what a circus ...

 As promised by Michael we went to the circus, but not just any circus....

When I was a child I was frightened when I was dragged off to a circus, always the fear of being dragged into the ring by a scary clown in front of all of those people.

Back in the '80's through no fault of my own, I saw the Moscow State Circus in situ, rather than the Ballet, and that finished me off with regards to the Big Top. The acrobats were incredible, however the acts that included a pony cantering around the ring with a little brown bear climbing round & round its girth at the same time, and a clown juggling hedgehogs, saw me leaving in tears.

Roll on many years and I read about a Circus, funnily they are based about 25 minutes away & I never knew!

For so long now I have wanted to go to Giffords.

This young man is the reason that we got tickets, the Musician clown (here serenading Michael before the show), Michael had to fix the electricity supply to his showmans caravan.

 The orchestra had some very unusual instuments

 Costumes based on a 1930's theme

 We sat by the exit and the young lady in the Military uniform stood just in front of Michael all through the show, she danced and jiggled all night, in those fishnets, I am not quite sure how much of the action in the ring he saw!!!

 I will not spoil the story for anyone who has tickets, I am not usually a fan of musicals(exception Billy Elliott & We will rock you), but the music throughout was great, Swingtime.

 This lady was an incredible high wire act and she is so incredibly toned that Madonna would look like Betty Turpin stood next to her.

 The musicians dressed in lovely costumes sang their hearts out.

 Just a few well looked after animals, there is a tiny puppy in the bicycle basket,

 The musical clown got the loudest cheers & the one little boy that was sat in front of us had the dirtiest laugh and we commented that he would probably go home and try to play a recorder in a similar way, (using all orafices!)

The end of the show came too quickly, Michael & I walked back to the car in sunshine & followed the sunset home, what an extraordinary evening out for us!

T