Big Fish Little Fish Balham – 08/02/15

It’s been a long day, starting with a lovely brunch at H’sMamaAndDada’s house and culminating in a hands-in-the-air dance fest at Big Fish Little Fish. I’m almost unspeakably tired but I’m going to try and describe it for you. Forgive me if I tail off or start blithering about “Ey ey ba day ba wadladie day”. It’s been a long day. Did I say that already?

So, today was the day that my Jewish Mother matchmaking skills finally paid off. Introducing Chris of Buttoned Down Disco to Hannah and Natasha of BFLF is hands down (or hands up?) the best piece of matchmaking I’ve ever done, and the resulting marriage of BDD music with BFLF magic was something beautiful to behold. I can’t have been the only one looking forward to it, given that the queue stretched around the block from The Bedford when we got there at 2:10ish. We waited for about 10 minutes, which gave us time to eat our hastily-bought sandwiches. That was quite some feat, given I’m still missing a tooth or two, but gave us the fuel we needed for a couple of hours’ raving at the Enchanted Forest-themed party.

By the time we got in, it was pretty much time to go to Roo’s free drama workshop, up at the top of the building. So we left Nathan and Eva dancing under Chris’ watchful gaze and went to join the ladies of the Stickybeak Theatre for some forest-based improv. Pickle the Pixie and Belle the Butterfly guided the kids through some cute animal impressions and drama games, which Reuben thoroughly enjoyed. Pretending to be a tiger made it into his top three moments of the weekend. Obviously, tigers don’t quite fit into the forest theme, but there was no telling the small boys that. Pickle and Belle tried to keep it on topic as much as possible, but if the group had been a bit more girl-heavy, there might have been more enthusiasm for fairies and less for wolves and tigers. Not that I’m gender stereotyping.

After the workshop, we caught up with the rest of the family in the craft room. They tried out most of the activities over the course of the afternoon, making masks, hiding in the play tents and sorting the temporary tattoos into type (that was Reuben). Eva spent ages colouring in the giant forest wall, standing next to another small girl, who was also wearing a grey top, pink wings and furry boots. Isn’t it embarrassing when you go to a rave and someone else is wearing the same outfit as you? Roo was busy making playdough food for Nathan, who was required to try eating each one and then say “Argh, it’s made of playdough! You tricked me!” This was another one of Reuben’s top three moments. Incidentally, the other one was watching “Twirlywoos” yesterday.

Then it was dancin’ time. Eva and I missed the parachute dance by seconds but stuck around to dance to “On a Ragga Tip” on the stage. The rave classics continued, with “Outta Space” and a version of the “Sesame Street” tune that used to wow ’em at the early BDDs. We bumped into a friend of my old boss on the dancefloor, which was random but cool, and the kids had a great time throwing balloons and cannon glitter about. It all went a bit too quickly, and Chris wound up his set with “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” (Eva liked being sent soaring) and then the old Looney Toons theme to announce that it that was, in fact, all folks.

It was a great party and, I’m sure, the first of many BFLF-BDD collaborations. Reuben declared around 4 that he was “all danced out” and I know what he means. Goodnight!