Monday 14 July 2008

How

Guess what we did this weekend?

I mean out of the ordinary. Apart from the domestic stuff like doing the washing, going shopping for food, visiting ailing hospital-bound relatives.

Apart from all of that.

You won't. Unless you are one of the mates who I texted on Sunday about it, of course.

We went to a Pow-wow. In Wiltshire. It was an experience.

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There is, fairly near us, a Bison Farm. They have other animals too, it turns out.

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Look, up the tree. Asleep. Not moving. Yep, that's him.

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Not like these guys, who made a racket and terrified all the small children who came near their pen.

Anyhoo, this weekend, the Bison Farm was hosting the 14th Pow-wow. How have we missed the previous 13? What were we thinking?

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So, in the heart of the slightly damp and dull Wiltshire countryside, we drove off, hearts high, pockets full of change to spend on native American trinkets and mementoes.

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The place is fairly scenic. There's a pond with a canoe (full of water, so not useable). There are many stinky farm buildings, some containing prairie dogs and chipmunks.

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Fucking thing wouldn't keep still.

Reminds me of our last trip over to the USA. We hadn't been there 24 hours when Mr WithaY had a chipmunk sitting on his head. He's like St Francis of Assissi. But with more weapons.

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We had a stroll through the dingley dell-esque grounds, till we came to a huge fence and a field full of camper vans, so turned round and came back to the main arena.

Ah, the main arena.

Picture a large crowd of people, many in mobility scooters, the majority well into the Third Age. They are mostly from the West Of England, it seems. Many are wearing a mixture of buckskin frocks, feathers in their hats, immense amounts of turquoise jewellery, and a variety of antler-related adornments.

One chap was dressed (I think) as a Pictish warrior. A great look, right down to his huge army boots. If you look carefully, you will see him at the back of this circle, scowling and tapping his foot in time to the music.

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There were many tents and tipis, and lots of people clearly having the best weekend of the entire summer.

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We wandered around, looking at the stuff for sale. It reminded me of a very dispirited car boot sale, possibly in Eastern Europe.

Still, it was an experience, and as Mr WithaY wisely remarked, it got us out of the house for a couple of hours.

2 comments:

Verdant Earl said...

A Pow Wow...over there? Really?

That's beyond interesting. I mean we have Irish/Scottish/English/Welsh festivals over here but that's because we have a lot of people living here that can claim descent from those lands.

Do you have a lot of Native Americans over there?

livesbythewoods said...

As far as I could tell, Earl, not one of the people there on Sunday was a Native American.

Except maybe by marriage.

It was truly bizarre.