Yes, as the daffodils start waving their yellow heads around, the blossom appears magically on the trees, the lambs start gambolling, (should never have taken them into Ladbrokes in the first place though), and the manufacturers of hay fever potions start tingling with anticipation, its time for the talking (b******s) down the pub to finish and the Morris season to start again.
For BB its always a busy time, and particularly for our team organisers who have to count how many of the team are fit enough to once again pull on the whites, a number which gets smaller every year.
Nevertheless the side has so far been able to do one event on Sat 28th Feb, the annual IVFDF (Inter Varsity Folk Dance Festival). This is essentially a weekend Folk Festival, held at a different University each year, and this year based at the splendid University of Exeter. As with other Festivals there are a series of concerts, displays and workshops, this year based on the main university campus, a short walk from the centre of Exeter where the Saturday Morris tours took place. Although a bitterly cold day, with snow in some parts of the country, the weather was fine and clear when we arrived at the first spot in time for the days dancing, organised by Exeter’s own Great Western Morris. In fact the day’s organisation was rather hit and miss, with our second spot involving a longish walk to what turned out to be a closed and deserted pub, after which we decided to retreat to a better looking venue we had passed on the way.
However we had an enjoyable day’s dancing, once we had got over the rather poor start of one of the team members having his car clamped while he stopped for a minute to look for the rest of us at the first dance spot at the waterside at Exeter Quayside. To add to the irony, Rob was chatting away to the clamper while he was doing it, unaware that the unfamiliar looking car being clamped was one of ours, having been borrowed for the day by our unfortunate member while his was being serviced. It was even more unfortunate that the aforementioned unfortunate was unable to dance, having unfortunately pulled a calf muscle at the preceding evening’s stonking ceilidh with the stonking Bismarcks.
At our second spot, we were able to work something of a flanker on our morning tour leader James, of the curly purple hair, from Newton Bushell. Although we had not been to a pub at this stage, James had managed to get a tankard of beer from somewhere, which he made the mistake of putting down in large open space next to the set he was dancing in. A posse of Bedlams, arranged in the style of a Rugby rolling maul, was despatched to advance slowly onto and over the tankard, swap it for a collecting tin, and retreat to the edge of the crowd in order to down the contents defore advancing again in similar fashion, swapping it back but leaving it empty and upside down before retreating again. Amazingly this was witnessed by the entire audience, and all of the other dancers, but not James. Still, he took it in good heart, especially when we promised to buy him another pint later, a promise which I’m afraid to say I’m not sure we kept.
Later spots included an excellent Dance of the Big Goblins outside the cathedral, after which those of the side who had imbibed some weak lager at lunchtime wanted to do the rather dangerous (especially after weak lager) Jolly Jockey Sticks, but were persuaded to do something safer by the more cautious members of the team, including Malcolm who then proceeded to go somewhat astray in our ‘safe’ Lucky Pierre. But we finished the day with a cracking spot including ‘Fairies’ in the Town Centre, and although the day’s organisation meant we didn’t get to dance with most of the other teams we had a good time overall. Those who stayed for the evening enjoyed a very pleasant and relaxed supper in the Prospect Inn where Lee received a new hairdo courtesy of Malcolm’s daughter Stephanie and her friends before going back to the campus for an excellent ceilidh with the Committee Band and Nick ‘marvellous’ Walden calling. Marvellous.