Come about 1pm I remembered that I had a workshop on Mills Mess Variations to run at 11am. I had sunbathed right through it. And I had to find some music to perform to in the main show. I'd left my usual routine music on a cd in my bedroom in Newcastle. On the other hand, I did find my sunglasses, which I had lost on the Saturday evening.

The show itself was on Saturday afternoon in the main hall. There was a nice backdrop erected to perform in from of, and a few lights, and that was it. The show itself was good fun. There were lots of mini performances by a local circus school, who danced and did some acrobatics. And there was a couple of aerial acts that weren't all that good. And a guy who spun some balls who was alright but nothing special. Actually, come to think of it, there wasn't much juggling at all. But what juggling there was turned out to be very good indeed.

Perpetium Mobile performed, a troup of 3 technical jugglers who did 2 technical comedy routines. Sounds like a contradiction but it worked. One routine used lots of different sized balls, from pingpong balls to those huge gymnastic balls. At one point Russian juggler Mikail juggled 5 different sized balls, ranging from pingpong ball to basket ball. These same three rounded off the whole show with a routine using rings and ladders and unicycles, finishing with passing 12 or 13 rings.

I juggled a ring routine which I had put together for Leeds convention but I didn't make it so this was the first time I'd performed it. In the run through before hand I got it all without a drop, but that didn't help much during the show itself, where I dropped quite a few times. Even the track I had chosen to perform to at the last minute ran out before I got to my final trick, which was slightly embarrasing. I guess that Tal leaving early so she didn't see me make a fool of my self was the only good thing.

The only other performer who juggled was Tom Murphy, an American physical comedian who just happened to be in Israel at the time. His act was full of falling over and hurting himself, trying to ride unicycles and then falling over and hurting himself a bit more. Come to think of it, he only juggled for about 2 or 3 seconds in his whole routine, and then he went back to hurting himself again. Though he did manage to bounce a club off the floor and catch it again... while on a 6 foot giraffe unicycle. Impressive.

So that was about all the show. Not much juggling but lots of fun.

The rest of the afternoon I spent swapping tricks with people, which turned into me doing my Mills Mess Variations workshop. Then there was the open stage. This was more like a renegade, with everything from the obligitory glowball routine (which was done by palmspinning acrylics with torches strapped to the wrists), through messy egg juggling by Scott to me doing "high level juggling", flashing 9 balls while standing on a lucky volunteer's shoulders, and a Nielr, a circus school teacher, reciting Shakespeare while having acrobalnce done to him by 2 students. The highlight of the show was Yaniv and Yoav, a double trapeze act. They were easily the best static trapeze act I've seen, lots of strength and skill... pity about the lycra pulling so tight acorss their crotches though.

Then, after the open stage was a gladiator session, starting off with a hour or so of 3 clubs battles and ending 5 hours later after a marathon 3 ball mellee. I can't believe how much more fun 3 ball gladiators is over 3 clubs. It is so much more tactical and you can pick up dropped balls and throw them at people, while still juggling your own 3, of course. There were many moments of high drama, especially times when someone would throw or kick a ball at me and I'd go into juggling 4, then throw the ball right back at them and winning the game... yeah! Even though I didn't play continuously for the whole time Gladiator was going on, I certainly improved a lot during the game play, to the point that I've won every 3 ball gladiator I've entered at other conventions since. Must be a good thing, at Durham this year I won a sweet and a 50p magic trick because of that.

Then, some time on Tuesday morning I fell asleep on a plastic mat at the end of the hall, wondering if I'd ever been so long at a juggling convention without an alcoholic drink before in my life.

Tuesday.