Which brings us to this post. As new members of our neighbourhood group, the Didsbury Lanes Association, Kel & I received an invite to the annual Laneway Residents Festival. For the grand sum of £5 a head, we were promised 6 hours of food from local restaurants, wine and beer, music and entertainment. Good deal? You better believe it! As you can see from the photo below, Kel wasted no time securing a glass of vino bianco.
Our fellow festival-goers were a mix of young families, retirees, young professionals and the ubiquitous local Member of Parliament. The 'theme' of the festival was European; but, regrettably, nobody had the foresight to arrange a Eurovision-style song contest. In fact, to my gross disappointment there was very little Euro-kitsch on display anywhere, with the exception of several enterprising young kids who came dressed in their finest Swiss milk-maid and Gerrard Depardieu costumes.
The range of food on offer was astounding, given the meagre entry price. Spanish paella (see accompanying photo), Scottish haggis, Italian fettucini and penne pasta, Irish stew, and...errr...Indian samosas (note to festival organisers: unless I'm horribly mistaken, India is NOT part of the EU).
True to form, I was roped into organising and running an activity - boules (or petanque, or bocce, depending on your euro-perspective). To my complete astonishment the boule tournament, played in the backyard of nearby resident, was a hit with the locals and gobbled up at least 2 hours of festivities. It was a divine miracle that I happened to coordinate semi-intoxicated people hurling heavy metal balls into the air without any property damage or minor flesh wounds occurring.
It stands to reason that next year the theme will be Australian and I will be asked to stage-manage the entire event, write funding applications and convince Peter-Russell Clarke to come out of retirement and whip up a pavlova or two. Watch this space.
