Then Saturday 25th June found us in Devizes, Wiltshire, for the more-or-less annual Dorset Tour, renamed this year the not-the-Dorset-tour on account of not being in Dorset. Instead, Jerry had masterminded a great weekend based at an excellent campsite just outside Devizes, at the bottom of the infamous Caen Hill flight of locks on the Kennet and Avon canal. After torrential rain overnight on the Friday the omens weren’t too promising for weekend dancing but this is BB after all, on whom legend still has it that it never rains, even when it does. So after a climb up the hill from the campsite, the 12 dancers present started the dancing in the puddles at Devizes Wharf, though as the day wore on the sun came out, and the rest of the weekend was beautiful. After dancing by the Market Cross in town, we were invited across to the Pelican Inn, busy celebrating its 57th birthday. After performing one dance for the delighted landlady (but no-one else) in the rather cramped side garden, one of the locals organised a whip round inside the bar amongst people who hadn’t been watching, and duly presented us with £5.60 – more money than we usually get from people who have actually been watching so there’s a lesson for us there somewhere….
In the afternoon we had 2 good spots in The Brittox shopping street, before returning to the campsite for Pimms, G&Ts, nibbles, and a cake brought by Sue’s Bob in honour of her birthday. This was immaculately presented to her with lit sparklers on top – but these were tough to blow out, as Sue quickly discovered. Later on we trekked across some fields to nearby Rowde and the Cross Keys pub – an inspired choice from Jerry, as after some good dancing outside, including a Coconuts with a few locals and other halves, we made our way to the big function room at the back of the pub. There, we were served various splendid food, after which the tables were cleared away and we were able to use their skittle alley. Everyone was divided into 2 teams according to birthdays, and after each team had won one game, the third deciding one came down to a nailbiting finish where Roy, on behalf of the second half of the year, needed 8 or more with his 3 skittles to win the match. The first ball scattered 5 – a good start. The second knocked down 2 more – good, but not good enough, and the remaining 2 skittles were frustratingly a little way apart from each other. But Roy matter-of-factly took aim, nonchalantly bowled – and the last ball of the evening caught the extreme edge of one of the skittles, and knocked it directly into the other one – both down and a victory!
The next day we moved on to Lacock, a charming rural village not far from Chippenham owned by the National Trust and untouched by modern development, where we had an excellent day of dancing and picnicking (and the odd game of morris stick cricket) in glorious sunshine – in fact it turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far. Again with a big number of dancers we were able to put up 2 sets for several dances, and developed for the first time competitive Jolly Jockey Sticks where the 2 sets competed to drop the least number of sticks (2-1 on the first attempt, then a narrow 1-0 on the second in front of the National Trust tea shop). The weekend concluded with a high spirited Knees Up, which ended with Jerry wrestling young Mark to the ground for some alleged misdemeanour – you just wait Jerry, in a few years he’ll be bigger than you……
