Tanoura!

I took a few days' break from social media again as I found all the "election excitement" was starting to do my head in. We have European Parliament elections going on right now, a General Election in the UK in July (I'm still waiting for my newly-acquired postal vote - after almost 30 years of being exempted from voting) and then of course the US elections gearing up, and while I am generally interested in politics I thought it was time to give it a break for a while. From social media in general actually as I feel I'm still wasting too much time online! Mind you, the weather could have something to do with it as it's been abysmal for the longest time. It's thundering right now actually, so I might have a look on Amazon to see if they've got any second-hand arks for sale! I feel sorry for the tourist resorts actually because "summer" is when they need to make their money and this one ain't been great so far!

I've been feeling a bit tired too lately but then I know I need to learn to just do bugger all sometimes and not think I have to be on the go all the time! That notwithstanding, I had a bunch of people over for Jordan's birthday on Friday (to give Jen a break from hosting it) and we have another board game evening on Saturday so I'm going to have to learn to pace myself!

That being said, Jen asked some time ago if we wanted to go to a Mediaeval Times show on 19 May at a park I've been to before, but never seen the show. As luck would have it it was one of the few days we had good weather (too hot in fact) and it really was spectacular, so I'm glad I said yes. When I went before I probably spent maybe six hours there. Well this time Jen had it all planned out which shows we should see and we ended up spending 13 hours in the park!!! No wonder I'm tired - I don't have the stamina I used to have (and with Jen being around 26 weeks pregnant I'm surprised she did either)!

I guess most of this post will be picture-heavy, from here on. Sorry about that!

So many people were dressed up
and the volunteers were very helpful!

The first and longest event we went to see was a mediaeval joust, which of course the good guy won and then rightly was able to ask for the princess' hand in marriage! Phew, thank goodness! That being said, Charlie was more fascinated when the evil guy's horse (who was standing by us) decided to take a dump - fascinating stuff!

I thought this man (and his dog) did
amazing controlling those geese!

The flame throwers were wonderful!

Flag throwers from Italy!

After the parade came the joust (circus acrobats I suspect) and when the show had finished we walked round to where they were cooling the horses off. The "good guy" was really nice with Charlie and waved and spoke to him, but the "bad guy" stayed in character throughout!

The bad guy!

The good guy!

We stopped for a while to eat and to be honest the food wasn't very good so we'd definitely be wanting to take a picnic if we go again (the wine and beer were fine though)!

Next we got to see a birds of prey event, which I'd seen before, but they were so quick I wasn't able to get any decent photos!

We did see a random wolf
(with a handbag) at the cafeteria though!

We wanted to stay to the end because the last event was a pyrotechnic show and when I heard the music I figured I was in for a real ear-bashing! The fireworks and flame throwers (again) were really good though, but the best event was an Egyptian man "dancing" the tanoura! A tanoura is a skirt in Arabic and this is a traditional spinning dance that they do. I couldn't film him but as he started spinning they lit the edge of his skirt and he had to keep spinning in order to stop the flames from spreading. He must have spun for around 20 minutes I guess, but the presenter told us that this gent held the world record for spinning for over three hours! It was really impressive!

The flame throwers!

I had to Youtube this video, and of course they weren't dealing with fire!

As we left the heavens opened and we got soaked. So I drove home cold and soaking wet and when I pulled into the village I realized the road was barricaded off because of the village fête, so I had to go half way up the mountain, in the dark and the pouring rain feeling pretty sorry for myself after a lovely day. And of course, to make matters worse, I still had no hot water at that point! Still, while I probably wouldn't go again (not to the Mediaevel Times at least), I was a great day, and I'm glad I went all the same as it was a great experience!