Take me to the river
Had a wonderful weekend in Norfolk doing the Fairy Fayre in the charming grounds of Narborough Hall. The crew had increased from 80 to 180 this year so it was a much bigger party.
Riculf and I turned up early and spent much of the first evening extracting cars from the mud, but as it dried out there was lots of singing silly songs around the campfire in the evening, covered in random kids demanding stories of pirates. We got to see lots of old fairy friends and make some new ones, from the precocious 6- year olds though all the hippy types to the old storytellers and musicians. Rollo was in his element and stole all of my well-earned attention again.
Apparently over 6000 people came to the fair over two days. The weather was fine with a few showers (one of hail!) Being trolls went down well as usual, and we got some extra helpers this time. We did a 'cooking for trolls' stand-up show with us dressed in chefs hats and pinafores making lovely dishes out of mud, sawdust, leaves, earwax and bogies. After suitably grossing out the kids and adults it all turned into a very messy mud pie fight, with lots of audience participation. As we were disgusting and wet after that anyway we both went into the river to disrupt the fairt float race. We (of course) cheated and launched our troll battleship (an old bath tub with Gary in it) and were easily winning up until a giant frog jumped out and made us capsize. Curses! -foiled again!!! We then had a water fight with the mermaids at the finish line. It was awesome just showing off in front of hundreds of people, especially being boo-d for being such baddies.
After a shower and a lovely swim with the mermaids in the owners private outdoor swimming pool, we became human again and it was time to be pirates- helping in my brother's pirate pantomime. He's a really good performer and fit us in perfectly into his bloodthirsty show that has as much fun for adults as children in.
Had a look around all the fantastic exhibits - craft stalls, fairy trails, wishing tree etc etc. Saw lots of things that would make some of you go "squee!". Two sweet little kids made us presents of little trolls standing on gemstones. aaaah. Also got given an example of the excellent bug jewellry made by
hailshimmer. who it was great to catch up with.
We finished up with a parade of the great 20' long dragon that had been making all weekend. At the end of the show it gets ceremonially burned, to arise again when it is remade somewhere else, by more children.
All in all a fantastic and magical weekend. And very tiring.
People keep asking me how they can get involved in this. Well heres the website: http://www.fairylandtrust.org/home.html The people are so nice its untrue, and need all the help they can get.