Thursday 19 May 2011

Yateley and District Lions Club May Fayre



Our first outdoor show of the season is done!!  On Sunday 1st May Rebecca, Tim, Alex, Tinker, Ronan and myself set off for Yateley for the Lions Club May Fayre to be held on the Monday, with Amy due to meet us there.  After an easy journey down we arrived to find we couldn't get the lorry on to the site as our way was blocked by a big red Volvo.  Enter the organiser who walked around the playing fields shouting 'anyone own the red Volvo?' and hey presto within five minutes we were in!

Having found our spot (sorry to the family we displaced) we then set up with no problems - we all remembered what to do with various poles, stakes and stable walls after all!  We then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening running through scripts (quite a few changes), practising new sections (mostly Tim and Alex who have quite a bit more to do now), and generally knobbing about!  Becca and I also took Ronan and Tinker for a lovely ride all through the woods, even managing to squeeze through a very un-horse shape gap at one point!  Have a look at the video below to see the boys practising in the pantomime horse - can you guess who is which end...?



Come the morning the weather was glorious, so at least we didn't have to worry about rain!  We were however all quite worried about the shows.  Becca and I were going to be doing the first show and we'd changed things around quite a bit.  Not only had we changed the roman ride music (to Wipeout - bad omen??) and not had a chance to practise it through on the horses, but we'd also introduced some new sections for Tim and Alex, including a pantomime horse and some unicorns for Thunderhoof.  On top of this we had a whole new section of the show involving a real volunteer from the audience - and who knows how a member of the public would respond to being dragged out of the crowd, put on Ronan and be told to vault?!  Amy was worried about the second show as she and I were going to be doing it - her first time doing a duo show and first time roman riding on grass!  Both her and I were concerned about the new pom-poms, which although look fantastic are really difficult to hold and extremely noisy.  Ronan actually has a fifth gear we found out when practising, frightening pom-pom gear - he even over took Tinker!!  So all in all it's fair to say we were all quite nervous!

Thankfully the first show went really well.  The roman riding to Wipeout worked and we managed not to be wiped out.  The boys did their pantomime horse section brilliantly and the crowd loved it.  The unicorns and Thunderhoof behaved.  The volunteer (Simon) loved having a sit on Ronan, and bearing in mind it was the first time he had ever been on a horse he did fantastically by managing to let go with both hands - the grin on his face when he did so was huge!  All in all it went very smoothly and Becca and I were both really pleased when we came out.

The second show went through well too.  The only issues were with me and my props!  At the start I was trying to stop Tinker, get my microphone out to do the introduction, and wave my pom-poms and I just didn't have enough hands!  I dropped one of my pom-poms but luckily only about ten feet away from where I stopped so it was quickly recovered for me by Tim!  And then at the end I went to pull my ribbon stick out, only to hear RRIIIPP, and then realise I was simply waving a stick in the air - no ribbons!  Luckily the ribbons were hanging out of the top of the pocket so I managed to grab them and wave them after all - just with a slight delay!  Aside from those problems everything went really smoothly.  Amy really impressed Becca and I as she knew her script inside out and didn't falter with any of the quick changes at all.  The roman riding which she was especially concerned about was no problem, neither was the vaulting, dancing or Thunderhoof section - so a big gold star for Amy!!   Becca was doing the music for us, and I think she was as nervous about that as we were for the show, but no need as that all went well too.  At the end of the second show we were all so relieved to have got both shows out of the way - onwards and upwards to the next one!

We're off to Essex on Saturday for a one day duo on the Sunday at Essex Young Farmers Club Annual County Show - fingers crossed it goes as well as Yateley did!  You can see some photos of the day by clicking here, including things I haven't mentioned above such as Tim and Alex helping out Mighty Smith the Strong Man and Tim's bed roll man, to name a couple!  Enjoy!

Love Rosie
xx