Karlshamn

hideous clown alert

After a night in Jönköping we decided it was time to head back to the coast so after stopping at a couple of pretty but boring aires at lakes we discovered Karlshamn, which just happens to be having its Baltic Festival this week. Hoorah! Whilst it's lovely being in Dickie it can get a bit samey so it's great when something excitingly out of the ordinary pops up.

jealousy of pert buttocks alert

The whole town of Karlshamn is taken over by free music, stalls and a parade (which featured my least favourite thing in the world...clowns).  Graham particularly enjoyed the Brazilian dancing girls with the pertest buttocks in the world. The highlight is the Baltic Song Contest which had some rather less-than-Baltic entrants like Spain and England but it was great fun and not quite as camp as Eurovision. Our favourites were Miss600 from England and the Lithuanianan entrant whose name escapes us, and the conductor from Poland wore a particularly lovely red crushed velvet jacket. The parade also featured a group from Uruguay, which, last time I looked, was no where near the Baltic Sea. There were line dancers, dancing monks,

slightly more modest than the Brazilians

and a group of cross dressing actors performing an English language version of a play based on Macbeth called MacBank.

We met some lovely Lithuanian ladies earlier in the day who gave us a sample of their traditional cooking...potatoes, a sour cream mixture and flax and hemp seeds. Very tasty, and we particularly loved the traditional dress they were wearing. Their potato pancakes were yummy too. We saw them boogieing to the Lithuanian songstress later in the evening. To find out more about the project the ladies in traditional dress are involved with they have a website which you can check out here .

Lithuanian ladies cooking their hearts out

Today I have subjected Mr Fluffy to the all day dog show which was a lot more fun this morning when they had the agility trials. It was most amusing watching a little King Charles Spaniel flying over the jumps. This afternoon's activities was a little akin to watching paint dry as the dogs were marched around some bowls whilst variously being asked to sit, lie down and keep still. Not quite as action packed but showed the dogs' obedience skills nicely. It wasn't all pooch central though as we went into town to watch the classic car race and mooch around the stalls.

Grasham's favourite classic car - a Saab converted to van

my favourite classic car - a Stingray

Tonight tension mounts as it's the final of the Baltic song contest. Who will win? We'll get back to you on that one.