Sunday 9 December 2012

Stranger, don't 'ee come into town on thissum night

The Smalltown procession.

Shark, Squirrel and Tiger have made lanterns to walk the walk. I paid for them to attend the workshop this year, so off-loading me from the actual lantern-making job. It's better for everyone concerned. With me they get last-minute frenzied shouting and some thrashing about with a hair dryer and Copydex while sprawled over the kitchen table and positioned under a gigantic fish. By the time the procession starts, someone's usually in tears. I didn't think I could withstand the dramatic tension of it all this year, so it was worth the fiver for the workshop fee.

Anyway, here are the photos of the actual event. It all looks normal to me, processing round the streets following a giant cat in a top hat and a robot with a slightly disconcerting grin. The town's inhabitants take to this ritual wicker-and-tissue-paper-fest with great enthusiasm, making double decker buses, space rockets, wolves, something that looks like a medical experiment and, from the House of Grit, a type of shark or whale or whatever. I forget. Not having to care about the precision placement of willow on a dorsel fin was just another reason why the preparation was totally worth a fiver.









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