Circus Act

The circus came to town last weekend!

Megumi, who has long had an interest in the circus, wanted to go along.

Sure enough, a Big Top had been set up on the waste ground usually reserved for Tabua's monthly market. When we got there at around 9pm on Saturday night things were very quiet, but we bought a couple of tickets for the evening's performance due to start at 9:30. Returning just a few minutes early, we found the bench seats at the back reasonably well occupied, but only a couple of people in the slightly more expensive 'seats' (plastic picnic chairs in red, white and blue). With our choice of locations, Meg picked the front row. It seemed a bit close, to me, but she was happy with the position.

There weren't many in the audience. Perhaps 100, mostly children and families. Still, the seating was reasonably full; presumably anticipating a smallish turnout, they had set out only a small area of benches and picnic chairs.

It was soon clear that the circus was very small. In fact, it seems likely there was only one family of performers -- each person coming out under different names for different acts. All in all, it was very low key. A couple of tame high-wire acts, some juggling and plate spinning, one rather impressive sword-balancing act, and a few animal acts involving a pony, a few snakes, doves, and some performing poodles. And then there was the knife-throwing clown... I can't forget that, because I was the one the knives were thrown at! Sitting right at the front, we were prime targets for being dragged into the ring. He caught my eye, and up I went -- to be handcuffed against a wooden panel that had obviously suffered many knife wounds. Protestations about it being dangerous because I don't speak much Portuguese made no impression. After some joking around, I was blindfolded, the clown stepped back the requisite number of paces, turned and threw four knives into the panel around me. A heart-stopping few moments. At least, that's my story...