Sue's Blog - Some assembly required.

Spider Baby

It is Irish Fest this weekend.
So, of course, the whole of the population of Milwaukee claim some sort of Irish heritage.
Trouble is they think the Irish and Ireland is a sort of fantasy world, where the little people and the faeries coexist amid fields of shamrock and tame shillelaghs.
Irish Fest does tend to reinforce this image.
The band at River Rhythms had been imported from the Emerald Isle.  We were hoping they might be a bit of a fusion band.
We have had Scottish bands before that combine rock, guitars and bagpipes.  They have been rather good.
This band, however, played purely Irish folk music where every song sounds exactly like the previous song.
They were nice enough, probably good musicians, but as boring as a very boring thing.
The guy on the right, with the guitar, looked a lot like Father Dougal (from the TV show Father Ted) prompting cries of "Spider Baby", from us not the Americans, but you will have needed to see the episode to fully understand that.


Across the river from the park the little girls were busy getting ready to do their Irish dancing.
There was another band playing over there for them.  I think it must be some sort of competition.
Whatever it was, it sounded a lot more fun than we were having.
We did have a giggle at their hair.
Someone, sometime, must have said that Irish dancers all have huge bunches of ringlets that jiggle up and down when they dance.
So, every one of the girls has a huge wig stuck on her head, which not only looks ridiculous but, also must be a nightmare in the sort of heat we are having.
I bet they say it is "tradition".


Some of us were not enthralled by the Irish music. Mind you she was probably tired.  She gets to school at 6.45am.  Classes finish at 2.45pm
Thankfully, she is thoroughly enjoying it.  She is quite a celebrity, being the only British kid and seems to have made a lot of friends.  I am so pleased for her.  It must have been pretty daunting to start there.  She has now been there a full week.
Well done Lauren.


Some people appear to have gone to the wrong festival altogether.....and why would you sit so close to the bin?


We enjoyed watching the boats on the Milwaukee River.  They do some lovely trips, some include dinner, drink and music too.

Finally, this Trump bloke gets everywhere.
This truly is a "Donald Trump" don't ya think?

posted by Sue Banks @ 12:31 PM