Rain Certainly Doesn't Stop Play!

Rachel - sporting her Victory Rolls

Rachel's friend Gaynor organised another fantastic Vintage Weekend at The Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells and we turned up today - ignoring the rain and (brief) thunderstorm!

In true Dunkirk spirit, everyone soldiered on and once the rain clouds had passed The Pantiles warmed up and people could come out of their shelters to join in the fun.

Thankfully the rain didn't hang around for long!

Rachel had her hair done in Victory Rolls at a pop-up boutique, then we toured the plentiful stalls (Rachel got some lovely lace gloves but still no joy on tracking down a bowler that'll fit my ginormous head!), before we enjoyed the music and dancing.

The Swinging Little Big Band in full flow

Musically a great new discovery for us was The Swinging Little Big Band. Unfortunately we missed most of their set as we off having lunch, but they're local so I'm sure we'll catch them again now we know who to look out for.

We were both particularly impressed by their upbeat rendition of Radiohead's Creep as their encore.

Miss Chantilly Lace

The highlight of the day (for me) though was the all-too brief performance by burlesque dancer Miss Chantilly Lace, who heroically braved the English weather for her fan dance on the Pantiles' bandstand.

Entering and exiting the stage to the Benny Hill theme tune (as also, oddly, heard during the Olympic beach volleyball yesterday!), her act was both funny and saucy - without being too raunchy for the number of small children in the audience.

Gaynor told us afterwards that Miss Chantilly Lace hosts a regular burlesque evening over at The Forum (the town's leading music venue - which I haven't been to for almost a decade now) and so a 'group outing' is now on the cards.



(video from Miss Chantilly Lace's YouTube Channel of today's performance at The Pantiles)