Winter is something many people dread, the long nights, the cold, being skint they aint months festi crew look forward to unless their going somewhere else. Of course there are those nice crisp sunny days, but ere in the West country there's a fuck of a lot of grey skies n rain.
At the end of the summer I said I wanted to establish some winter events, and if by magic I got a call from my mate Hugh asking if we be up for doing the catering at the Origins conference over Samhain, then Sanger txted me asking if we were up for fire n frost, a small outdoor festi/circus event over Imbolc on the Bullzini circus yard nr Shepton Mallet. Fire n frost was a collaboration between Chris and Dave Sanger, inspired by one of Daves relatives the great Victorian showman Lord Sanger. He travelled the continent with drays, hand carts n horses, along with the animals they say the lord Sanger circus caravan stretched well over a mile, it must have been an amazing site seeing that roll into town, billed as the greatest show on earth which it was at the time. Of course times change, laws change and the circus has changed, but the magic of the circus never changes. Once the kids are there screens become a distant memory as they are to engrossed in the show.
What a show it was as well, heavy rains cleared allowing for outside performance to happen. Jill did a beautiful Imbolc ceromony round the fire, and as always there was a solid line up of musicians on Sangers stage, spoken word, acoustic vibes and some great bands telling it like it is. There were two lush fires, the main central one that was raoring all weekend and a raised one in the shape of a cnd sign outside our stall, it was made from upcycled gas bottles and great for the marsh mellows. Despite the weather performances all went ahead as planned, wowing the crowds with hoop dancing, chair balancing, foot archery, fire shows and high wire walking in some quite crazy conditions. It just added another element to the performance really, I mean learning the discipline to do that stuff is one thing, but tightrope walking n firing arrows with ya feet in the wind and rain is another level altogether. There was also a giant cosy yurt with a burner that had performances happening in also.
We were blessed with dry calm days for set up and the get out, and the weather overall could have been a lot worse. Ellies truck was on the hard standing at the bottom of the field so we had to handball all our stuff in and out on a cart (backs of my legs feel like there not there). Like with everything you just got to get fkn on with it, and as you go u learn, adapt and evolve improving everytime you do it. Its a different ball game being out in the fields this time of year though you have to be really prepared. We had 10 long marquee pins and 2 storm straps on a 6x3, when the winds got high I was constantly tightening in ropes and banging in pins till you could barely see them poking out the ground, but our all weather winter set up held up strong.
It felt great gathering at this time of year, we met some lovely new people on the crew and bumped in to some familiar face's over the weekend which is always a pleasure. So nice working with you all.
Big love to all our customers and thank you so much for the support, we hope you enjoyed our food n drinks as much as we enjoyed being there.🙏
The winter cobwebs have been well n truly blown away.
Long live the circus 🎪 ❤️
