Blysh in the Bay

As it was such a pleasant Saturday morning, and the school term is finally over, Clare was in the mood to celebrate, so we went out to the Fat Pig Deli on Wyndham Crescent for a coffee and croissant breakfast, sitting outside in the sun. Then we visited the Farmers' Market in Roath to get our week's organic veggies
and I wrote a sermon for tomorrow. After lunch, we headed down the Bay on the bus to see what was going on.  Cafe Castan or Caffi Ty-Bach as the public toilet conversion been wryly christened in Welsh, had a jazz trio entertaining customers and at a distance, people like us waiting at the bus stop.

Plenty going on down the Bay indeed. The Wales Millennium Centre has organised a festival with over two hundred performances in and around the building, spanning several weeks, called 'Blysh'. These include music and theatrical arts and street circus. The Oval Basin in front of WMC is being prepared for a month as an inland seaside resort - funfair, promenade stalls, paddling pools with sand pit, just fifty yards from the quayside water's edge. It's still a construction site at the moment. Will it be as popular here as this kind of summer 'happening' has been in other cities? I wonder.

One of the more amusing oddball events going on while we strolled along the boardwalk involved a belly dance group and drummers performing  on board a small vintage pleasure boat which lives in the Marina. The boat went round in circles just off-shore, and the performers seemed to be having fun. They were however not in close enough relationship to waterside strollers to hold an audience - nice idea though.

 A little further along outside the Mountstewart pub a huge crowd of people were standing outdoors drinking and enjoying the sunshine. From the heart of crowd came forth superb singing - dozens of voices, singing traditional Welsh 'hymns and arias' in tight harmony. Not your average inebriated sport spectators crowd celebrating a victory, but the Cardiff Blues Choir - Côr y Gleision enjoying a sing and a pint in the open air and making a very fine noise indeed.

Teenaged boys and girls were jumping off the edge the open lock gate into the waters of the disused dry-dock next to the pub, as there was nobody in a hi-viz jacket on hand to stop them or remonstrate with them on the grounds of health and safety. Only the strongest of swimmers would dare the twelve foot jump and swim back to where they could climb to shore. A timeless summer scene.

 

We concluded our afternoon out in the Millennium Centre itself. First, tea and scone with jam and cream for Clare, a cider for me. Then a remarkable performance on the Foyer stage from Siren Sisters, a close harmony singing group faithfully reproducing the song and dance acts of female trios of the forties and fifties, like the Andrews Sisters and the Beverley Sisters.

They catch the 'look' of the era every bit as faithfully as they reproduce the sound. Best of all, they're Welsh, as well as brilliant. What a lovely summer afternoon of leisure.