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king_pellinorWell. If anyone wants to visit St Malo, I can very much recommend going to
The start was great. I told everyone to turn up at the ferry terminal at 7.00, and they were all there by 6.55. I don't think that's ever happened on a morris do before. That includes one person who worried me a bit by ringing up at 6.45 with the opening gambit "Is it St Malo this weekend?", then confused me by claiming to be standing at the Brittany Ferries desk opposite the bar, which is where I was. He was actually about 20 yards further down.
The ferry over had mild disappointments in that the best beer they had was Newcastle Brown, and they had no cabins left. But being forced to wait in a bar with a load of people who are looking forward to dancing all weekend when you know you don't have a bed to go to makes for a lively time.
Allegedly.
All the careful planning seemed to fall apart when we got to St Malo, so the rest of the weekend was played by ear. I think there are two lessons to be driven home. If you split the party (eg to shuttle people in 2 minibus trips):
1) make sure each part is viable in itself, and
2) make sure that any waiting is done near a bar.
At one stage I made the mistake of having us wait in a carpark while half of each of the three teams went off. If I'd sent off 1 1/2 teams and kept 1 1/2 back, we could at least have done some dancing while we waited. If we'd been near a bar, we wouldn't have cared either way.
Anyway, we impressed people by dancing almost as soon as we'd all arrived at the first spot, and I was very pleased by the way everyone was keen to get into it, and the way that people could go from a milling start into Winster Processional (which 3/4 of them had never done before) in about 3 minutes. What nice people.
Then we found a really nice spot in the old town (note: St Malo is really big. The old town is a nice neat size, but we were based about 3 miles away. Wish I'd known that earlier) and did some busking, being moved on by the Police half-way through (to a nicer spot that I'd initially not gone for as it seemed too nice - surely someone official would have wanted it!).
After that we had a huuuuge procession with 87 groups in it (about 30 dance teams and bands, the rest being Tall Ship crews) that was about 3 miles long, took an hour, and had 23 million people watching. That was really uplifting, especially as there were 86 groups merely walking along and waving at the crowd but only one that was dancing practically the whole way :-D
Then back for dinner, after a long wait for transport, then back to our billets for an early night as all the bars would apparently be shut by 10.00. But! Raymond the heroic bus driver found us a small supermarket with wine and beer and cider and whisky and token orange juice! And we went back and cracked open the booze and the Costa Ricans next door wandered over with coke bottles full of homebrewed rum and lots of toasts went round and lots of songs were sung and I think I've promised to go to Costa Rica next year. Oops.
Next day we were off to another procession, this time with just the dancers and musicians (the Tall Ships having softly and silently stolen away in the night). More lessons are learnt: going to kick people out of a bar is a good way to get them to buy you beer; drinking French beer in 3 seconds because the procession starts up the instant you get it is hard on the throat; and lying down to sleep in the street is a sure way to get people to try to wake you up. The rotten swines.
Then the show dances on the stage, which went perfectly and so aren't really worth talking about.
Back to lunch, which took quite a while, and then we had to arrange the move into the new billets. In the absence of any information whatsoever I arranged (at about 2.45) that we would all meet in the courtyard at 3.00 for a briefing. At 2.55 one person announced that as I hadn't arranged anything or told him anything at all he was off to watch the dancing, and refused to discuss the issue. This got me into the first time I've raised my voice in full-blooded anger in public (swearing at computers or sewing doesn't count) since I can remember, which was a very odd feeling. This was followed five minutes later by the second occurrence of this, when said person collared me to point out that there were no hard feelings but I was of course completely in the wrong. So, for the record: times in my life that I have told someone to F*** off and meant it is now 1.
So I ignored that obnoxious bas… person and set about organising the billets, which took rather a lot of negotiation as no-one knew which were our rooms nor how many we had or we needed (though I came close to deciding that being one room short could actually be a desirable result). Eventually all was sorted out, due to my superb French - I think I was complimented on my command of the language by the concierge, though I'm not quite sure.
So we went to watch other people dance, and to try and find something to drink. Then we had a brief parade (just walking, arm in arm) back to the billets to have lots of free cider and impromptu music and dance in the courtyard with all the different sides mingling and dancing and singing. Eventually this led to dinner, then heading off to the bar to watch The Match.
The bar was closed.
Happily, the one around the corner was open. After this point I really can't reconstruct much, to be honest. I got very caught up in The Match, I may have had a beer or two, and then LadyofAstolat was hammering on my bedroom door telling me it was 8 o'clock, and there was a large puddle of Costa Rican rum on the floor of my room almost (but not, I think) soaking into all my kit, which seemed to have exploded all over the room.
So we broke our fast, packed, went down to the ferry, gave profuse thanks and bottles to our guides, drivers and people-who-follow-us-around-looking-worried, boarded, hit the bar, had a huge lunch, did some dancing, made some mail, debarked, embarked on another ferry, debarked again, went home, showered, and went to sleep.
Phew.
Gosh, I didn't think I could remember that much :-D
The start was great. I told everyone to turn up at the ferry terminal at 7.00, and they were all there by 6.55. I don't think that's ever happened on a morris do before. That includes one person who worried me a bit by ringing up at 6.45 with the opening gambit "Is it St Malo this weekend?", then confused me by claiming to be standing at the Brittany Ferries desk opposite the bar, which is where I was. He was actually about 20 yards further down.
The ferry over had mild disappointments in that the best beer they had was Newcastle Brown, and they had no cabins left. But being forced to wait in a bar with a load of people who are looking forward to dancing all weekend when you know you don't have a bed to go to makes for a lively time.
Allegedly.
All the careful planning seemed to fall apart when we got to St Malo, so the rest of the weekend was played by ear. I think there are two lessons to be driven home. If you split the party (eg to shuttle people in 2 minibus trips):
1) make sure each part is viable in itself, and
2) make sure that any waiting is done near a bar.
At one stage I made the mistake of having us wait in a carpark while half of each of the three teams went off. If I'd sent off 1 1/2 teams and kept 1 1/2 back, we could at least have done some dancing while we waited. If we'd been near a bar, we wouldn't have cared either way.
Anyway, we impressed people by dancing almost as soon as we'd all arrived at the first spot, and I was very pleased by the way everyone was keen to get into it, and the way that people could go from a milling start into Winster Processional (which 3/4 of them had never done before) in about 3 minutes. What nice people.
Then we found a really nice spot in the old town (note: St Malo is really big. The old town is a nice neat size, but we were based about 3 miles away. Wish I'd known that earlier) and did some busking, being moved on by the Police half-way through (to a nicer spot that I'd initially not gone for as it seemed too nice - surely someone official would have wanted it!).
After that we had a huuuuge procession with 87 groups in it (about 30 dance teams and bands, the rest being Tall Ship crews) that was about 3 miles long, took an hour, and had 23 million people watching. That was really uplifting, especially as there were 86 groups merely walking along and waving at the crowd but only one that was dancing practically the whole way :-D
Then back for dinner, after a long wait for transport, then back to our billets for an early night as all the bars would apparently be shut by 10.00. But! Raymond the heroic bus driver found us a small supermarket with wine and beer and cider and whisky and token orange juice! And we went back and cracked open the booze and the Costa Ricans next door wandered over with coke bottles full of homebrewed rum and lots of toasts went round and lots of songs were sung and I think I've promised to go to Costa Rica next year. Oops.
Next day we were off to another procession, this time with just the dancers and musicians (the Tall Ships having softly and silently stolen away in the night). More lessons are learnt: going to kick people out of a bar is a good way to get them to buy you beer; drinking French beer in 3 seconds because the procession starts up the instant you get it is hard on the throat; and lying down to sleep in the street is a sure way to get people to try to wake you up. The rotten swines.
Then the show dances on the stage, which went perfectly and so aren't really worth talking about.
Back to lunch, which took quite a while, and then we had to arrange the move into the new billets. In the absence of any information whatsoever I arranged (at about 2.45) that we would all meet in the courtyard at 3.00 for a briefing. At 2.55 one person announced that as I hadn't arranged anything or told him anything at all he was off to watch the dancing, and refused to discuss the issue. This got me into the first time I've raised my voice in full-blooded anger in public (swearing at computers or sewing doesn't count) since I can remember, which was a very odd feeling. This was followed five minutes later by the second occurrence of this, when said person collared me to point out that there were no hard feelings but I was of course completely in the wrong. So, for the record: times in my life that I have told someone to F*** off and meant it is now 1.
So I ignored that obnoxious bas… person and set about organising the billets, which took rather a lot of negotiation as no-one knew which were our rooms nor how many we had or we needed (though I came close to deciding that being one room short could actually be a desirable result). Eventually all was sorted out, due to my superb French - I think I was complimented on my command of the language by the concierge, though I'm not quite sure.
So we went to watch other people dance, and to try and find something to drink. Then we had a brief parade (just walking, arm in arm) back to the billets to have lots of free cider and impromptu music and dance in the courtyard with all the different sides mingling and dancing and singing. Eventually this led to dinner, then heading off to the bar to watch The Match.
The bar was closed.
Happily, the one around the corner was open. After this point I really can't reconstruct much, to be honest. I got very caught up in The Match, I may have had a beer or two, and then LadyofAstolat was hammering on my bedroom door telling me it was 8 o'clock, and there was a large puddle of Costa Rican rum on the floor of my room almost (but not, I think) soaking into all my kit, which seemed to have exploded all over the room.
So we broke our fast, packed, went down to the ferry, gave profuse thanks and bottles to our guides, drivers and people-who-follow-us-around-looking-worried, boarded, hit the bar, had a huge lunch, did some dancing, made some mail, debarked, embarked on another ferry, debarked again, went home, showered, and went to sleep.
Phew.
Gosh, I didn't think I could remember that much :-D
no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-13 03:38 pm (UTC)I have very fond memories of Dominican rum, from the summer I spent there. That was my first introduction to white rum, prior to that my only experience of rum was in the form of Captain Morgan's rum which we used in the Christmas cake. My taste in rum has refined somewhat since then :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-13 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-13 04:10 pm (UTC)