Boo......

Well we didn't win, England did, but we had the best weekend!

We turned up Friday and did have quite a few technical problems, but going on about that will sound like sour grapes so there's no point. We gave a great performance, and didn't let Wales down, the Adjudicator didn't like the set, but did like the acting and direction. After the play we went back to the party that had been arranged at the hotel, it wasn't bad they had arranged for a "barn dance" type thing, but few people danced, that finished at 1am, and that's were the party really started we drank lots and sang even more, mostly the old Welsh Favourites and whatever we could think of, a couple of the organisers of the festival stayed up too, I got to bed at 3.30am.

The next morning we had to meet the Mayor at 11am, I was so hungover I had to get ready in stages, I washed then had a lie down, I put my make up on....then had a lie down....I got dressed ...then had a lie down, I didn't make breakfast at all, and proclaimed that if anyone saw me drinking ANYTHING other than coke, they could shoot me! We got to the arts complex where the meeting was to take place, it was hotter than the Serengeti, and of course we were all dressed up, they offered us coffee (which helped enormously with the sweating NOT!) The Mayor arrived and we had to exchange gifts that had been given to us by our respective local councils. This is where it got embarrassing, our local Council had given us a crystal clock for the Mayor.....which didn't work, and these awful flag type pennant things for the other three teams, we were ashamed to give them out, especially when we had huge boxes of stuff from the other teams, Irish whiskey, Scottish whiskey with glasses and a water jug, and lovely things that all came from Tamworth from the English team. In fact we were SO ashamed we went out and bought each team a bottle of champagne and gave it to them in the evening. After all my no more drinking, after meeting the Mayor we went to the pub and I tried a hair of the dog, well half a lager anyway which did cure me, in fact it cured me enough to have a bottle of champagne ourselves at lunch. We did a bit of shopping and I must say Solihull is a really nice town with really good shopping.

At 5.30pm we were invited to Jon's parents room (Jon's parents are Players Theatres biggest groupies)for drinks and nibbles before going to the theatre for the remaining two plays. We went to the theatre watched the entries from Ireland and Scotland listened to the adjudicator, who made me laugh when one thing he criticised was the fact that Ireland had a dripping tap in their play as a sound effect, and he said the drips were too close together!!! As I said England won, and while we were disappointed the thing about the festival is that it didn't last long. We went back to the hotel and partied hard, tonights entertainment was a folk group, it wasn't good, it just wasn't the kind of music to get a party going, but it was one of those situations that turned out to be really funny, especially as the one lady (who looked like Morticia Adams) put some wooden thing with a dancing man on it between her legs, and slapped it back and forth in time to the music!!! Moyna reckoned you couldn't get those in Ann Summers!!!!! England went home and the Celts started singing, Wales first, then Scotland would do a number then Ireland, slowly Ireland left then Scotland and by 3am it was just Wales.....there's stamina in Welsh Wales! I think we got to bed at around 5am, but as I stuck to vodka all night, no hangover the next day and I made it to breakfast!

All in all it was a brilliant weekend, I still get a bit fed up that it's not televised, if it was a British Final of anything sporty it would have coverage, but Amateur Theatre....no chance, not even a newspaper article.

Here's to next year, the finals are being hosted by Wales and will be held in Swansea.

Bit tired this week mind you!!
Keep smiling
Marmite Girl xx