Crealy at Christmas 2004

We were all very excited to be invited to play at Crealy Park again last term. The staff had enjoyed our performances so much that they particularly requested us to return in December to play for Father Christmas and all the visitors to his "Winter Wonderland". However, as no one had warned us that it would actually be winter inside the barn, we were frozen!! The setting looked idyllic. There were dozens of Christmas trees set out with a path meandering through to Santa's grotto.

Our performance pitch turned out to be the mini electric car circuit neatly surrounded by a white picket fence. We quickly set up our instruments, donned our fingerless gloves, sent the adults off to fetch hot drinks, and began to play. As we started with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer who should appear in the barn doorway but Santa himself! Carrying an enormous sack of presents, and accompanied by 2 elves, he wandered up the path through the trees to his grotto, waving cheerily to everyone.

We played for about an hour and then we sped off to warm ourselves up racing around all the climbing equipment. The adults set up a permanent order for free coffees at the café using most of the cups as hand warmers as they looked after all our instruments! Drew took the opportunity to celebrate his birthday with friends at Crealy and many of our players brought along their families to enjoy a pre-Christmas outing. But it was SO COLD! When the supervising adults temporarily mislaid 18 of the older players, a search party was dispatched to find them. In the end their giggling gave them away when they were discovered half way up the helter-skelter huddling together to keep warm!

Our afternoon performance enticed more people into the audience including 3 surly boys who dismissed the music as "boring" until they heard Olly's solo drumming spot in Rockabell Jingle, after which they clapped and whistled enthusiastically along with the rest of us. We gave out lots of promotional leaflets to potential new players, and even had an enquiry from someone wanting an orchestra to play and help raise money at a charity concert. As an exercise in raising the profile of ECO it was a good day out, and as an outing for our players it was also great all round entertainment for everyone.

BUT if we go again next December, we mustn't forget our HOTTIES!