Following a successful day of street performance at the Huddersfield Food Festival we decided to look a bit further afield and find some other events to try out.
After a short drive to Ravensknoll Park in Moldgreen, Noah and I arrived at the dog show. We looked but found no-one in any official-looking uniform, so after a brief stroll around the grounds and a quick look at some of the carefully groomed mongrels on display we decided to set up over by the ice-cream van and burger stall.
No sooner had the opening chords of our tune 'The Reggae Reggae Sauce' rung out than a man had strode over with an air of indignance and stated accusingly "I don't remember you asking permission."
"That's because we haven't," I heard myself think. Instead I said, politely, "hello, my name's Josh," and offered my hand. It was refused.
"Well whatever it is, the answer's no. It has to be dog-related," said the by now clearly perturbed gentleman. I glanced at Noah and then at the ice-cream van, wondering what dog-related flavours were on offer, and what might be inside those burgers.
And so we obediently left the dog show, with our tails between our legs and having earned the square root of not a great deal, but with one valuable lesson learned: always have a few dog-related tunes to hand, just in case.
We drove to town and played for a couple of hours outside Marks and Spencer. It was a lovely day and we received some positive comments from a few people, which was nice. Of course the real lesson here was regarding permission. One reason why we had such a good day at the Food Festival was that we had had contact with an organiser, who'd been happy to allow us to play. Thanks again to Cathy and everyone involoved in the organisation of the wonderful food fair.
So in fairness the dog show owner had every right to tell us where to go. And if his bite's as bad as his bark we probably won't be returning to Ravensknoll while the canines are around!
