The kids were as high as kites today in expectation of the King.
Not, I hasten to add, His Majesty King of Spain but an august personage of much more significance to the children: the Carnival King.
The entire school eventually settled down for the spectacle by nine thirty and awaited His Majesty whose first stop was our school.
Each section of the school from the very youngest toddlers to sixth formers put on a display of some sort ranging from a stomping march from the first classes to a spirited rendition of a line dance from the oldest.
My own kids found it very difficult to stay in their seats and anxiously awaited the arrival of their spectator parents before they finally settled down on firing the odd question to me to explain the non arrival of the Carnival King.
When he finally arrived on a golden throne on the back of a lorry complete with police escort and musicians who comprised a band of instrument players and a troupe of drummers the kids’ hysteria was complete!
The fact that he was so late that he was not able to witness the cavorting of years three and four as various kings, princes, knights, ladies and dragons faded into insignificance as the full extent of the troupe with which the Carnival King travelled was made apparent.
To my (admittedly) limited experience the personages of our Carnival visitors owed much to the Mardi Gras celebrations of the Deep South especially of New Orleans with an admixture of the Carnival in Rio for extra spice.
The King himself, with painted face and formal jacket covered in medals was accompanied by fan waving bewigged flunkeys and also by his Carnival Queen. His courtiers were characters ranging from blue suited, white faced attendants with plume topped helmets to skin tight lamé clad dancers sporting flamboyant headdresses of bright yellow feathers.
And your humble correspondent? I was clad in a purple cape edged with gold with a tunic of crimson and gold. This ensemble was topped with a crown which I felt expressed my understated aspirations.
To describe in words the glittering masterpiece that was that headpiece: sparkling gold, gleaming silver, the shimmering reflections from the cut up plastic mirror we used in a science lesson; the layers of border paper; the swish of tissue paper; the glinting flash of sun caught staples holding the whole thing together; the excess glitter flakes slowly floated to the ground – to describe this, I say, would be impossible.
I confidently expect my crown to be claimed by the Generalitat as a work of art which will need to be preserved for the nation.
During the Carnival dancing after the Carnival King had read the incomprehensible poems about the staff in Catalan saw one of the more extraordinary characters of his entourage – a near naked character wearing impossible high heels and a high camp high collar ask me to pose with him for a photograph! This inversion of the natural order confused and exhilarated me. Though in retrospect it did make me wonder just what I looked like for such a character to consider me worthy to complement his extraordinary appearance!
Sunday? Carnival in Sitges!
Bring it on!
Not, I hasten to add, His Majesty King of Spain but an august personage of much more significance to the children: the Carnival King.
The entire school eventually settled down for the spectacle by nine thirty and awaited His Majesty whose first stop was our school.
Each section of the school from the very youngest toddlers to sixth formers put on a display of some sort ranging from a stomping march from the first classes to a spirited rendition of a line dance from the oldest.
My own kids found it very difficult to stay in their seats and anxiously awaited the arrival of their spectator parents before they finally settled down on firing the odd question to me to explain the non arrival of the Carnival King.
When he finally arrived on a golden throne on the back of a lorry complete with police escort and musicians who comprised a band of instrument players and a troupe of drummers the kids’ hysteria was complete!
The fact that he was so late that he was not able to witness the cavorting of years three and four as various kings, princes, knights, ladies and dragons faded into insignificance as the full extent of the troupe with which the Carnival King travelled was made apparent.
To my (admittedly) limited experience the personages of our Carnival visitors owed much to the Mardi Gras celebrations of the Deep South especially of New Orleans with an admixture of the Carnival in Rio for extra spice.
The King himself, with painted face and formal jacket covered in medals was accompanied by fan waving bewigged flunkeys and also by his Carnival Queen. His courtiers were characters ranging from blue suited, white faced attendants with plume topped helmets to skin tight lamé clad dancers sporting flamboyant headdresses of bright yellow feathers.
And your humble correspondent? I was clad in a purple cape edged with gold with a tunic of crimson and gold. This ensemble was topped with a crown which I felt expressed my understated aspirations.
To describe in words the glittering masterpiece that was that headpiece: sparkling gold, gleaming silver, the shimmering reflections from the cut up plastic mirror we used in a science lesson; the layers of border paper; the swish of tissue paper; the glinting flash of sun caught staples holding the whole thing together; the excess glitter flakes slowly floated to the ground – to describe this, I say, would be impossible.
I confidently expect my crown to be claimed by the Generalitat as a work of art which will need to be preserved for the nation.
During the Carnival dancing after the Carnival King had read the incomprehensible poems about the staff in Catalan saw one of the more extraordinary characters of his entourage – a near naked character wearing impossible high heels and a high camp high collar ask me to pose with him for a photograph! This inversion of the natural order confused and exhilarated me. Though in retrospect it did make me wonder just what I looked like for such a character to consider me worthy to complement his extraordinary appearance!
Sunday? Carnival in Sitges!
Bring it on!
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