Giffords Circus - Lucky 13

This years Giffords Circus season has begun and is now in its second week at Pittville Gardens in Cheltenham.  Here is quick glimps at this years show.  (spoiler alert)

Star Bistro

For ages I have wanted to go to The Star Bistro in Ullenwood, which is a joint venture by The Wiggly Worm team (a charity that works amongst the vulnerable, disadvantaged or seldom heard) and the students from the National Star College (specialist further education college for people with disabilities).  They have recently got through to the finals on Food Glorious Food on ITV1 with their Pimm’s Jelly, fingers crossed they win.

Today we finally managed to go and I really hope we go again soon.  Not only because the food we had was lovely and the place is great but the menu is so good, I was torn what to choose.  So I need to go back and try the other things I like the look of.

I had Butternut Squash Risotto and Tweedy had Confit Duck.  I really wanted to try the Mussels, Chilled Poached Salmon with Cucumber Salad and the Seared Bavette Steak.  There were so many amazing sounding dishes on the menu.

Photo taken from Star Bistro’s FaceBook page

Tweedy really isn't in to food that much.  To him it is fuel he needs to make him function and often forgets to eat and only remembers when he gets dizzy.  He generally eats out because I love good food and if I ask him how his was he normally shrugs and says “It was OK”, but even he said his duck was full of so many flavours. 

I can’t recommend The Star Bistro enough; it is great on so many levels.

Pickle

Around two years ago when we first started looking for a parti poodle, I would show people a particular photo I found on Google images, saying "I want one just like this one, but I don't think they will let me have it". I had no idea if the dog in the photo was from the UK or even alive. I just showed people the photo to show them what a parti poodle was and thought it was a fine example of what I was looking for. Finally we found Apple and she has been part of our family for over a year. There is something strange about parti poodles though and most people who have them seem to have more than one. I have no idea why but very soon I realised I wanted a friend for Apple. I contacted a breeder that I had emailed before and whom others I knew had recommended and decided I would like one of her puppies even if I had to wait a while. Amazingly though, the day before I emailed her she had, had a boy born. Even more amazing though was I found out that his Grandmother was the poodle from the picture I use to show everyone 18 months ago. It was lovely to meet her when we went to collect him. So introducing Pickle…

…he really is a pickle!  

Tweedy's Lost Property promo

People often ask Tweedy what he does when he is not working for the circus.  November, December and January is Panto time and this year he was at The Everyman in Cheltenham which was great as it meant we could spend the Christmas season in our own home, which we never do.  This may also have something to do with us often not having somewhere to call our own home in the past.  The rest of the time he is really busy with various other projects, one being his one man show called 'Tweedy's Lost Property' which he tours in theatres all over the country, often selling out.

2012

We are now well into 2013 so I thought it might be a good time to get this blog up and running again especially as last year I only blogged once.  It was a pretty important blog though, as it was all about Apple.

So how was 2012?  All round it was pretty good.

I thought living in the Cotswolds, fairly centre to the Giffords tour would mean we would be there more, but it really didn't turn out that way.  Partly because the weather was totally shocking this year, which resulted in a fairly tough season for everyone and because Willow's social life seemed to explode and I spent most of my time being a Mum taxi.  Also because we were fairly close to most of the grounds Tweedy would manage to get home nearly every week.  ‘The Saturday Book’ was a great show and Tweedy really loved it, especially as it gave him a chance to work with Cal McCrystal whom directed it.

Willow wasn't in the show this year so we were able to do other things.  In August I took Willow to her first festival which she absolutely loved.  I chose Shambala for her first festival as it is billed as a family friendly festival.  I'm really pleased I chose this one and think any other festival will have a lot to live up to for her.

We have settled in to our new home really well and love where we live.  Cirencester is a great town and I am happy to call it my home.  Most things are within walking distance from the house, well half an hour or so, so we thought we would be able to manage with just the one car, but with all the running around I had to do with Willow it became clear fairly early on that we would need another little run around for me.  I am really pleased with our second car; ‘Rub’ that happens to be my seventh mini.  I haven't had one for quite a few years and you forget how much fun they really are.  The plan is to do him up a bit, but then there are lots of plans so it might not get done for a while.

Our mini is the one on the right, as the other car is only mini by name!

Willow has really settled in school and year six will be the first time since she has started school that she will attend just one school and not be home-schooled by me at some point.  She absolutely loves it, I on the other hand miss having her home more and I also miss teaching her myself.  I never really realised how much I loved the whole home-school thing and I'm glad that I got a chance to learn with her.  It’s hard to believe that in six months she will be in Secondary school, so I think we settled down just in time.  She will be going to a school in Cheltenham, so we may move just one more time so we are closer to her school, though she can catch a bus if we don’t.

One of the reasons Willow is only attending one school this year is Tweedy did Panto in Cheltenham so we were all at home this year for Christmas, which has been wonderful.  It was a bit tougher on Tweedy as he had to drive back and forth every day but I think the benefits outweighed the negatives and he loved working at The Everyman Theatre. 

If 2013 turns out as good as 2012 I will be very happy.

2012 photo dump.