Morris In

I am so annoyed at myself for not taking my camera with me last night. We (in the morris sense) were dancing out at a couple of pubs in the market town on Faringdon. I was in two minds as to whether to go or not because of the combination of distance (not that great, but a bit of a drive) and inclement weather (it had been persisting down all day). But turn out I did, and met up with a bunch more of the team at The Bell, a nice old coaching inn on the market square.

The rain didn't stop much, so we danced for a while underneath the quaint C17th town hall, which was a challenge in itself, trying to avoid the pillars and steps around the edge of the rather restricted space. We had an audience of a few passing teenagers huddled under umbrellas and some smokers (and a big black dog) outside the various nearby pubs, but who cares about audiences?

After a good few dances and a quick "bagging" (administrative) session, we made the short walk up the gentle hill to the next pub, The Folly, under the power of melodeon, harmonica and bells, to be greeted by a shout of "You're late, sod off!" from the landlord, who then went on to say it was good to see us and that the drinks were on the house.

The rain had stopped by this point, so we set up in the street and performed one dance which did a great job of summoning the rain back again, so we gave up and went indoors.

Of course, we didn't want to abuse the landlord's hospitality without putting on a show, so someone had the idea of performing the Upton On Severn Cocktail Stirrer Dance (more often performed with sticks than cocktail stirrers, but sometimes you have to improvise). So there were six of us laying into each other with short lengths of coloured plastic in the corner of a small bar, just in front of the darts board, which made our previous dancing venue seem positively spacious.

Over the following hour we performed a whole heap more dances in ludicrously cramped conditions, which was a lot of fun for us (though very hot and sweaty) and I think the locals enjoyed themselves. Then it was the rest of the evening spend singing songs and playing tunes. I bailed out far too early, but it was a trip home and I needed to be up for work in the morning.

Cracking evening, and very silly indeed.