A day free of obligation. I have been using it to try and organise my household service providers better. But there are plenty of distractions.
I took Lou into work at Glyndebourne and then drove to Lewes to buy a picnic ahead of Monday’s open dress rehearsal there. The perfect early summer weekend weather, and perhaps the right time to go to Lewes. It was The Battle of Lewes. Scores and scores of hairy men about my age in armour banging drums and wearing scavenged chainmail. One of them even brought his duck.
They ambled through the streets of Lewes for our pleasure, occasionally becoming excited about something or announcing something else. Lewes is a town for this sort of thing. There’s a pub where they do Dwile Flonking, which involves throwing a cloth at people while dancing. Nobody really understands it but they still do it. It reeks of a joke that got out of hand, perhaps people trying to confuse Americans by pretending they all knew the game as they made it up.
Today everyone got the weird stuff out of the garage again and ran around all morning shouting. By now they’ll all be Morris dancing or sozzled on real ale or maybe they’ll even be flonking that dwile. I enjoyed the battle for the spectacle but I couldn’t help feel that they were having more fun than we were. That’s kinda the point with reenactment though I think – much like a lot of amateur dramatics. It’s for the participants more than the audience, but that’s why the audience pay so little.
I moved from bench to bench in the sun, settling and making calls until something moved me. I thought I’d found a lovely bench looking at the river but a very jolly and catastrophically awful busker set up next to me. Now I’m at The Juggs – a fifteenth century inn outside town. They’ve made me a pint of shandy and I’m trying to get the right balance of sun and shade for maximum summer and minimum sleepy. Still a few hours before I pick Lou up from work and I don’t want to be tired or tipsy.
I thought I’d write this now so I can focus on doing very little for the rest of the day but for staying awake. A couple of events coming up next week. This weekend I fully intend to charge up properly. A deck chair would just be the ticket right now…
AlBarclay 