Sumer is acumin in

According to some of the gents from the team, I have now been officially inducted into the morris, having taken part in my first Oxford May Morning. Up at stupid o'clock we were down outside Magdalen College before 06:00, and shortly afterwards began a couple of hours of dancing at Radcliffe Square followed by 3 other locations around the city. I had my first ale at around 07:15 (well after several others in the side). This is something that seems really bizarre: the mix of people watching were a mix drunken students from the previous night's parties, revellers coming in specially for the May festivities, and bemused people on their way in to work.

Eventually we ended up at St Edmund Hall for breakfast (and more ale plus singing), before a little bit more dancing and then a swift trip down to Grove where we danced for a primary school, and then again on to Wantage market square before finally getting to the pub for lunch and songs.

Saturday was spent pottering around town and then sitting in some friends' garden drinking tea while the Youngling played with their daughter (of the same age). Nice and relaxing. Then on Sunday, while <3 was away for a bellydancing practice, I did the Bad Dad thing and took the Youngling off to a pub where some friends were playing some music as part of a May weekend event thing. All went well.

Monday was another morris day as we had a booking for a May fun day thingy in Shrivenham, which is about 20-odd minutes away from us. We arrived just as a group of the men who had turned up earlier returned from the Prince of Wales, bearing news that the landlord had offered some beers in exchange for us turning up to dance later. It turned out that we had about an hour between the two slots we had been booked for and the pub was only 5 minutes from the event, so after we had done our bit we pottered over, so the WAGs could warm up on the inside (the wind was a bit on the cold side) while the rest of us leapt about outside, egged on by landlord and a few of the punters. We got back just in time for our second spot, making for a generally satisfactory afternoon.

I now have a couple of weeks off from dancing due to Other Stuff getting in the way, but this mini-drought will end with Chippenham Folk Festival, which promises to be a lot of fun and a lot of work. Possibly a lot of mud too, but we'll see how it all works out.