The Last Stand - Ashburton

The tour had felt long, and yet all of a sudden it was almost over. The spirit of the circus had been lifted as all of the Ring Master's family had come down to join the circus over the school holidays. Our cast instantly doubled in size with our youngest performer being only 8 years old. The rain had cleared up and the sun was shining, and we had time to relax a little as Ashburton was a two week stand.

Luke and I were leaving a couple of weeks early as we had commitments over in Australia. The rest of the crew would be carrying on to Christchurch for their last stand.
It is a tradition in circus to make the last show as entertaining, and as difficult as possible for your cast mates - and most were already planning the cast pranks for the final show.. Apparently, it was decided that Luke and I truly deserved to get some last show prank action, even though we were not going to be there for the final show..

Just before the show, everyone was acting suspicious - I twigged that we were likely to be 'last showed' but had no idea what the cheeky scoundrels were up to. I was waylaid on my stilts out the front of the tent - just long enough it seems for the rigger to change the height of my trapeze by raising it 30cm - just high enough to make the routine hard!

I walked into the ring, and glanced over at the sound desk - the entire cast were standing there, giggling as I reached out to my uncomfortably high trapeze.
After my act, I watched as everyone raced back out to watch Luke.. the guys had taken his music and sped it up by about 20% so his juggling routine was in fast forward! It was hilarious to watch, and amazingly he carried the routine out to the end, scoring a round of applause from the cast and audience alike when he returned backstage.

All through the show they had set little glitches for us to 'enjoy', and as if that wasn't enough, when we returned to the car to drive away it seemed that they had hidden hundreds of grape drinks through ALL of our luggage, doubling it's weight and leaving us with the lovely experience of discovering grape drinks for days to come!

..little did they know, that they were not the only ones hiding grape drinks that day.. :-p

And a Grape day was had by all

I snuggled down into my comfortable circus bed.. It seemed unusually difficult to get my head  to rest on my pillow.. in fact, my pillow seemed a little solid. I poked it, slightly confused..it was hard, very hard, positively lumpy in fact. I traced the lump with my hand and in a moment worked out what it was.. some cheeky cast member had filled my pillow with grape drinks!

Instantly, I suspected Nick - he had been lurking around suspiciously - yup, it must be him.
I removed the grape drinks and snuck over to his bed, carefully placing them in his blankets and one in his gumboot for good measure. I smiled and returned to sleeping.

I was woken in the morning by an exclamation of confusion from Nick's side of the bus "What the?!" He had rolled over on to the plastic bottle.. "Briar! I am going to get her" he muttered, and quickly rolled out of bed, slipping on his gumboots "GAH! - Oh, that was a good one" he smiled and rolled on out the door.

When I came outside, he was over by the chuck wagon. Briar was at her caravan, throwing grape drinks at Nick out the window - He was dodging them, cracking up in fits of laughter.

I chose this as a good time to point out that it hadn't been Briar placing drinks in his bed. "YOU!?" he asked, astounded - "I blamed Briar!"
At this moment, Briar and Luke emerged from their various sleeping quarters and we stood around giggling. Briar had placed the drinks in what she thought was Luke's pillow after he had covered a grape drink in candy floss and given it to her as a joke.. She had filled my pillow by accident - I blamed Nick, Nick blamed Briar.. Sigh, what a grape day.

Can the pot call the kettle black?

Town: Gore, NZ
As twilight falls, a thick mist engulfs the big top. The lights from our food caravan twinkle in the foggy moonlight. For a moment I am taken by the true and intense beauty of circus life. Then I look down at my hands.. elbow deep in the dish water, soaked in chicken lard and constantly finding floating lumps of indistinguishable unknown food leftovers. I cringe as my vegan hands rub past something that was slightly slimy. Sigh. Reality, it happens.

Everyone at the circus is on the roster - except for the bosses. We have a rotation -first meal you clean out the food kitchen, second you are on dishes, and the third, on the drying and putting away. It is often a fairly merry task - the three performers on duties each joking around and attempting to avoid the horror.. the nightmare.. the dreaded task of washing the.. *insert a loud scary drum roll*.. the 'black pot of death.'

The black death was a large iron cauldron like pot, heavy, charred and black with age. It had this amazing ability to turn everything it touches black. It is so feared by the cast, that everyone would cover the tables in newspaper, and wear gloves, just to move it into the dining area. Once touched by the black.. it was there forever, a lesson learned by many of my favourite items of clothing.

Luke was on chuck, he gave me an apologetic look as he delivered this doom pot to my side. "I think that is everything" he reassured
Nick was drying "Ah.. the black death.. Ha! Glad I'm not on dishes!" He teased. I flicked him with dishwater and looked down at the black filthy pot.
I nodded to myself. Gotta love the circus life.