Tropical World 2011

Dear Debs, These little spiny mice line themselves upand sleep on each other. Cute or what?

And they were neither interested in or bothered by our steelbands. Which were: Day One: Foxwood first set, namely: yourself, Charlotte, me, Bex and Sarah. Second set was first half of East Steel: namely Karen and Cheryl, plus you, Charlotte, Bex and me. And thanks to Sarah for the photos.

Day Two, Set One was going to be South Steel, but ended up as Foxwood, being firstly Bex as a soloist, then me and Bex - a duo, then me Bex and Gary - a trio, with Sarah, a quartet, and with Charlotte a veritable Trout of a quintet. [Sarah would like to point out, correctly, that she was early for Set Two, and not late for Set One].

Debs, above is Tuesday Set Two, the glorious East Steel, other half, namely Lynn, Anne, Alli and Cathy plus us, of course.
We decided this year to invite more guests. Some Sparrows came last year but I wanted to 1, give more opportunities to more pannists and 2, vary it a bit, if only for the Tropical World Staff. And I did think/ hope it would decrease the pressure. Well, it did and it didn't. . . . .

Tuesday Day Two Set Three was Foxwood Steel again. And it must be said, that East Steel were the only band of us to practise Christmas tunes, and they were something of a hard act to follow!

Wednesday Day Three was a full on three-band night. Firstly Foxwood Steel and Doves, and to our great delight you bobbed up for Set One. We were you, me, Bex, Natalie, Katie, Charlotte, Georgia and Sophie. Day Three Set Two was Sparrows [above and to the left]: namely Maisie, Nina, Claudia, Millie S, Millie C, Chloe, Sophie, Evie and Ashley. The Yorkshire Evening Post was doing an article on the Sparrows [published on 24 December], so, half way through this set we got photographed. It was getting more complicated . . .

Lastly, Day Three Set Three South Steel, namely: yourself, Charlotte [your leader], Neil, Caroline and Kerry. Bex and Katie played along. I did a bit, but, OMG, so tired. Put as many pans as we could into my Tardis of a Skoda Fabia, discovered that one Sparrows had left her bag, money and bus pass into another Sparrow's mother car. Thank you, Trish, for going back out again. All I could think was goodbye to Shaun, to the mice and meerkats and hullo sofa.