Helmsley Green Day

The sun shone on Helmsley in North Yorkshire yesterday for the Helmsley Green Day, held at Helmsley Walled Garden. Well, it shone nearly all the day. It started raining just as we were about to finish learning Compost! The (mini-)Musical, so we retired to the Beer Tent, and performed to an enthusiastic crowd of drinkers there.

Visitors to the Green Day learned my eco-musical from scratch in 30 minutes

The performers had started learning my eco-musical just 30 minutes beforehand. They were the second Compost Crew I had trained that afternoon. The first Crew had learned the musical and performed it outdoors earlier that afternoon. (And one of them came back to join in this second performance!)

The Walled Garden is a beautiful garden in a beautiful location. Helmsley Castle looked down on us as we sang and drummed through our musical.

Helmsley Walled Garden

There was lots going on at the Green Day, including story-telling from Nettlefoot Kate, and shoe-selling from my friend Terry, who runs Roosters .

Storytelling from Nettlefoot Kate at Helmsley Green Day, 16 August 2008.

Congratulations to all those who came along and learned Compost! in such a short time, and then performed it with such gusto! It was great to see grandparents learning and performing with their grandchildren, and parents with their children, and some brave children all by themselves! Much fun was had by all.

Relaxing after our second Compost! performance, Helmsley Green Day, 16 August 2008

And thank you to one of our talented younger performers, Elizabeth, who gave me a beautiful papier mache flower she had made at one of the stalls earlier that day. I was very touched.

Thank you too to all the people who made Helmsley Green Day happen, particularly Monica Gripaios.