the circus comes to town!

Can you remember when the circus came to town?

My first memory of the circus was Billy Smart's in Blackheath, London. The smell of candy floss and sawdust and the crush as the crowd poured through the mouth of the big top ,  gasping and chattering excitedly.

I wanted to be a  trapeze lady (when I wasn't being Gigi), with feathers in my hair and a sequinned costume. I was bewitched by the way they swung gracefully overhead and would look away as they flew out into space, reaching optimistically for a swinging bar somewhere in the darkness. Would they make it safely? Would they fall? And then entwining themselves around ropes as they descended serpent-like from their eyries high above the sawdust ring.

I hope young Master M likes his circus tent cake and has sweet dreams of a circus life of daring and adventure.