May Day in Harrowbarrow

May Day is a big event in England, and was made even bigger this year by the Royal Wedding. We watched the wedding in our home on the BBC, joined by Christine's sister, Jenny, who was visiting us for a few days. She had just happened to have a work trip to London and added a few days onto her trip to visit us (and take in the wedding). That afternoon we went to Calstock for a party on the quay and had a great time.

The actual May Day was a bit different this year because of its occurrence on a Sunday, making Monday the 2nd the official May Day Bank Holiday. Thus, with the Royal Wedding Bank Holiday and the Easter Monday Bank Holiday last week, we've had two four-day weekends in a row. We're ready for the kids to go back to school!

Even though the actual May Day was a bit of a non-event because of the timing of it, we still had a nice day at home. Rebecca, Gwendolyn and I did a nice run around the village so that I could loosen up from a rough five-mile run the day before with Jenny. It also gave me a chance to test out my new Nikeplus datalogger - thanks Jenny! The girls also surprised Christine and I with a four-course meal - something that they must have picked up on our trip to France. We had heard them preparing a snack for us, which they've done in the past, but they outdid themselves this time.

Gwendolyn did the table centerpiece using some flowers that were available in the cottage, rocks that she and Rebecca picked up on the Hallsands beach where I work, and a Union flag that she had received from her friend Chloe at the Calstock wedding party.

We were seated and offered our first course, a tasty peppermint-honey tea. Notice the "origami" napkin and silverware arrangement on the table in front of us - another table setting innovation of Gwendolyn's. Needless to say, we were a bit surprised at this point and were wondering what could possibly come next.

The next dish and those that followed were devised by Rebecca. This one completely surprised us - look at that presentation! It was a tomato and mozzarella salad sprinkled with pepper, very well presented on the plate with a flower on the side, and reminiscent of the tomato and mozzarella salad that we had in France just two weeks ago (France trip blog to come soon!).

The main course consisted of a peanut butter and black currant conserve sandwich with a side of almonds. You may not notice in the picture, but the plate was sprinkled in lemon juice.

They completely outdid themselves on the dessert, which was a fruit and granola parfait of Rebecca's creation. The parfait contained strawberry yoghurt, apple juice, granola, and plum pieces. It was quite delicious.

Here are our intrepid chefs, cleaning up after the meal. That was an added bonus - they even cleaned up the kitchen when they were done!

Today we attended the villages' May Day festivities at the Village Hall. I wrote villages' because there are two of them - Harrowbarrow and Metherell - and possibly a third if you add in the hamlet of Norris Green, home of our friends Roland, Maria, and Rosa and perhaps twenty other people. The May Day event is a fundraiser for the Village Hall, and included all sorts of stalls that were set up by citizens just to raise money for future events at the hall. We were particularly excited about this event because our favorite dancer, Rebecca, shown here just before we left,

was doing several May Pole dances with the Harrowbarrow School dance group. The party began with an opening bell-ringing and announcement from the Calstock Parish (a township-sized area that includes about seven villages) Town Crier. Here she is opening the day.

The opening act was the May Pole dancing. The dancers had to contend with some ferocious winds. Prior to the dance, Christine saved some people from getting hurt when she caught the May Pole as it blew over! Here are a few action shots of Rebecca. You can see how much she enjoys dancing.

As an added bonus, here is a video of one of their dances.

There were several other events throughout the afternoon. There was food and candy floss for sale, face painting - here's Gwendolyn with both a painted face and candy floss -

beer, wine, and cider for sale (we were definitely not in the US!), raffles, crafts, items for sale, and a history display of the Calstock Parish. There were some other events, too, such as one pitting Harrowbarrow versus Metherell in tug-of-war. Rebecca participated in the kids contest, but inadvertantly pulled for Metherell with her friend Sophie.

No matter - whichever team was on the downhill side won each time. Physics prevailed!

The day ended with a precision performance by The Arrow Barrow Display Team. We had seen signs up around the village advertising the May Day event and this "team", and I had spoken to one of the flyers, who happens to be Rebecca's teacher, at the pub the other night,

but we were still not sure what to expect. They turned out to be a hilarious mock precision flying team with wheelbarrows instead of planes. Perfect, witty English humor. The crowd was packed in to see them perform. They had made their debut at last year's May Day party and work had leaked out about them. Here is the team stretching prior to their performance.

The script included an injured "bat man", who directed them in their flight patterns, her replacement by the real batman, the tending to the injured by medics, an appearance by the Red Baron, and, you guessed it, Snoopy! Here's a sampling of their precision "flying" - a double pass by.

It was a great day in Harrowbarrow!