A blissful afternoon...

We've just got back from seeing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

An afternoon of swing and sing and dancing. A time of clapping and emoting as Joseph got sold into slavery by his brothers (ah, that sounds familiar. Wonder where I've heard that before?). But Joseph, he rises again, even higher than the heights of being his father's favourite sonhood.

He becomes Pharoah's favourite Minister. He practically runs Egypt because Pharoah is so busy being an Elvis Presley look-alike.

I bought the tickets some weeks ago. I was asked how many adults and children. I said I didn't know because some people call a sixteen year old an adult and some say people that age are still children. The nice lady on the desk said, "If they are under 18, they're children to us!"

Thank you, Playhouse.

A row of schoolchildren sat, wriggled, talked and laughed behind us. I wasn't asked for my CRB check or tapped on the shoulder and told to move because I was seated near our fragile young and I might be one of them. (Home educators or paedophiles)

There were elderly people swinging their canes, children in school uniforms, middle-aged folk munching on scones and sucking drinks through straws and all of them, jigging about, singing along and clapping their 'ands orf.

Wonderful.

Great musical. Great cast, full of energy and enjoying themselves.

Great audience. All ages, full of interest and wanting to enjoy themselves.

Not a suspicious glance around. No police. No bother about tickets. No worrying whether or not we were going to be picked up as those weird home educators and returned to our home because we were AT LARGE and we should be ON THE EDUCATIONAL PREMISES.

Great afternoon.

So, you see, it can work. This being in the world and not checked or stopped or shown disrespect or hassle.

We can be normal. Life can be good.

Life is good.