Clothes and circuses

"Can we look at the clothes section after we look at the toys?"

Not words often uttered by 4-year-old boys. Unless they're The Big Fella continuing his quest to look fashionably cool this spring.

He certainly dressed to impress for our first family visit to the circus last weekend. His Angry Birds t-shirt and scruffy blue jeans blended nicely with the circus roadies.

It was an old school circus with lions, monkeys, ponies, clowns and trapeze artists.

Admittedly the lions looked rather tired, the monkeys riding the ponies looked alarmingly manic, and the clowns made rather tired risque jokes. But the trapeze artists were rather good, and the atmosphere was quite jolly.

At 4 and 6, the boys were just the right age to be delighted by all the silliness and the pantomime atmosphere. Particularly the physical humour of the clowns. The look on their faces was priceless.

I know it's probably quite politically incorrect to like a circus. And for those like me with allergies, there was dust. And animal hair. In an enclosed space.

But if take your best antihistamine and adjust your other medication before heading off, adults may have an acceptable time as well.

"What was your favourite part of the circus?" we asked the boys afterwards.

"The clowns," replied The Complicated One.

"The part where they bumped each other off the table, or the bit where they crashed the clown car?"

"No, the clowns we put the balls in. I love my pig." (He won a stuffed pig, which is rather cute.)

Seems they liked the sideshow alley at the entrance more than what happened under the big top.

So perhaps it's an old-fashioned carnival with sideshow alley they prefer, more than an old-fashioned circus.

Provided The Big Fella can dress to impress, he probably doesn't care where he goes - as long as he's looking goooood!