Something for everyone

A Dance a Day performance on Weymouth Esplanade

There’s been something for everyone at Weymouth during the Olympics, most of it free. On Friday, a beautiful warm day, Ian went off with instructions from me to take pictures for this blog to watch a dance performance by ‘A Dance A Day’. Part of the Cultural Olympiad, this turned out to be a group of mature ladies, with a scarves fluttering from their wrists, gently swishing and twirling in a kind of synchronised, speeded-up T’ai Chi. But I mustn't laugh; I expect I’ll be doing something like this one day. When the group started to dance with empty sand buckets Ian decided it was time to move on…

...to the Punch and Judy Show! Here, the show was surrounded by unattended children who obviously thought it was very funny to pelt the booth with little stones, much to the annoyance of the operator who made pointed comments in the direction of the missing parents, none of whom appeared to chastise their offspring. Being such a lovely day I expect the parents were happily taking the opportunity to cook themselves whilst the kids were being entertained. The next day when I was there it was much windier and the children, accompanied by mums and dads this time, were doing all the right things, with choruses of ‘hello’ and ‘yeeeees’.

It was so windy on Saturday that as we walked back home in the afternoon we were showered by sea spray blowing in about 50 metres away from the shore of Newton’s Cove. Quite a difference from the day before’s millpond conditions when some of the sailing had to be postponed due to lack of wind. Up on the promenade, a group of children were having a whale of a time, dashing in and out of the spray as the waves crashed against the sea defences.