2019-07-21 Day 5 Europeade Festival at Frankenberg, Eder

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Around Europeade in Frankenberg

The sky is pale and clear here in Frankenberg at the Europeade Folk Festival, it has been almost cold in the night. The clear sky heralds a hot, sunny day… and it is. We decide not to go to the ecumenical church service at the Liebfrauenkirche, mostly because it is on top of the hill, half an hour’s steep climb in the heat of the sun, either in costume and hang around until 2.00pm or back to the camper to change and another climb up the hill.

We all stay at the camperplatz, sit in the shade, chat or read until lunchtime. After lunch we put on our costumes ready to walk to our performance on the arena stage. We decide to ignore any instructions from Angelika as they are unhelpful at best. Around 1.30pm we leave the camperplatz and walk along the river to the Arena, it is very hot. At 1.50pm Angelika tells us all to meet her at the Arena at 2.00pm (a good 20 minutes walk)! Too little too late and we ignore her.

We meet the others from the hotel outside the arena and go to find our place in the line and wait to be called. Angelika and Gabby come to find us. Gabby is helpful and tells us they will take our bags and look after them and return after our performance. We hand over all our bags and they disappear. No sooner have they gone than I realise that my white gloves are in my bag, now with Angelika. No one knows where they have gone. I search and scour the whole site; so many people, it is like searching for a needle in a haystack, but I don’t find them. I return to the group, upset at not having my gloves… again how unhelpful.

Pia, our Europeade guide in Finland, waited with us until we were ready to go on the stage, ready to do any errands that we needed.  Just as I had given up, I see Linda (our musician), she does not need her gloves to play her flute, so she lends me her gloves. Now we are ready to go. We are the second group of six groups on stage, both UK groups dancing together as one spot. Mostly I remember queueing at he back of the stage in full sun, parading on and standing in the searing afternoon heat while the other groups dance. So many people, the arena is packed. First, an Armenian group dance for about 5 minutes ( instead of their 3 minutes maximum allotted time); second, a French group from Hesse (near Calais); then the two UK groups dancing together: our Galliard group from Lancashire and Steps in Time (the children’s group) from Dorset. There are 12 of us from Galliard and 10 from Steps in time, we both dance Powell’s Fancy and take less than our allotted 3 minutes.

We really enjoy the performance and I remember lots of smiling in our group and, at the end, a lot of cheering and clapping from the crowd. The other two groups from France perform and then all six groups parade off… it is all over. We make our way to the seating in the arena and sit in full sun (no shade) to watch the other groups perform. The temperature is about 30°C in the shade and there is another two hours of displays. After about 30 minutes in the full power of the sun, both of us have to leave, we can’t take the heat. We find a shady spot and watch the displays on the large size screen. Later, we leave the arena and walk to the town and sit at the bottom of Bahnhoffstrasse under the trees overlooking the water fountains. We watch the world go by and the children enjoying playing in the water.

At 6.00pm the others come to join us and we walk to the Sun Kong Chinese restaurant who can accommodate 17 of us for a celebratory meal, they even accommodate my gluten-free diet without any fuss at all! We have a lovely meal and spend about 2 hours celebrating a very successful week. We also discuss Europeade 2020 in Klaipeda, Lithuania and who might want to go (not everyone). It will be during the first week in August and will be the same week as our 50^th wedding anniversary. We wander back to the camperplatz, the daylight beginning to fade and sit outside with a pot of tea. Kath and Albert come to join us, and we reflect on a good week of dancing (Kath and Albert’s first festival). The evening darkens to night and the stars come out, Jupiter shining like a torch in the darkness and we drift off to bed.

[Later note: Feb 2022 :: Due to Covid Europeade was cancelled in 2020 and 2021, it’s supposed to be happening in 2022 in Lithuania, but many of our group has decided that the political situation around Ukraine makes it too risky to travel to Lithuania, so we will not be going there.]

Europeade Folk Festival Day 5

Summary of motorhome journey through Germany and France – no travel today

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