The weekend is coming and you feel like a night out – what can you do?

Pretty much every weekend you can go to the cinema and what a very lovely cinema it is too – the Harbourlights cinema at the Malvina House Hotel. Yes, Southampton readers, the cinema here has exactly the same name as the cinema in Ocean Village, Southampton – I have travelled 8,000 miles to go to a cinema with the same name!

There are several pubs in Stanley but for a craft beer experience, there is Beerworks. This is Stanley’s very own micro-brewery, where owner Jeff brews up a selection of ales with great tastes and names, such as Rockhopper (a blond ale) and Peat Cutter (a stout). Beerworks is truely a micro-brewery, so it’s only open a weekend each fortnight to give Jeff enough time to brew enough ale in between openings. There’s a very nice taproom and in the summer lots of room outside and sometimes Rhys’ food truck or bbq is on hand as well.

For a night out with live music, there is the Trough which hosts local bands, mainly of the rock and country variety. On the outside it’s an unassuming brown, one storey building – but go through the entrance and a red curtain and it’s transformed. A stage area at one end, tables round the edges and a dance floor in the middle. During the winter it averages out at about 1 event a month, and it’s great to hear live music and songs that I know!

Traditionally there were regular dances at the Town Hall in the centre of Stanley – these days there are fewer dances, but one that continues is the Camp Education Dance on the last Friday of Farmers Week in July. As it’s mid-winter it’s a good time for farmers to come into Stanley and spend time discussing issues, learning new skills and planning for the year ahead. It’s also a good time to socialise and enjoy yourself. The Camp Education team (teachers who teach in settlements and travel between farms) run the dance at the end of the week and this year I volunteered to help. It started at 9pm (I coped by having a coffee at 7pm to keep me awake all night!) and went on until 1am. Between us we took entry money, ran the bar and acted as bouncers on the door. The DJ played country music (more songs I know) and there was partner dancing all evening , with all ages mixing and dancing together – a really positive thing to see. It was a lovely evening and I even had a dance, when someone very kindly took me for a turn round the dance floor and I tried not to stand on his feet.

There are several formal events – such as the May Ball, the Falkland Islands Museum Ball, the Conservation Ball and in some years the Poppy Ball – but I haven’t been to any of these yet – so that’s a subject for future posts, as are Pub Quizzes, the Winter Quiz and Darts… For a small community there’s a lot going on!