The 2015 year started for us in fine style on 7 March with a ceilidh spot at the Haddenham ceilidh with the Jam and Crumpet Band, where a set of Wheel of Fortune, Cavalier, Mazurka and Fairies went down very well with an appreciative audience. A great start to another season, and it was refreshing to see a good number of dancers present, especially bearing in mind several doubts about injuries in the side going into 2015. But there’s nothing like the smell of the crowd (especially a sweaty ceilidh crowd) to get everyone going.
Following that the outdoor season started, as it has done for some years now, with a trip to Oxford on Saturday 18 April to dance at the Oxford Folk Weekend. It turned out to be a gloriously sunny day, and we enjoyed some excellent dance spots with other good sides in Radcliffe Square, outside The Bear, in Cornmarket, and in Bonn Square. David was tour leader for the day and so in charge of choosing dances which he did very capably, despite every dance choice being apparently strongly disapproved of by the rest of the side. The day was not without other incident too, with an alarming number of sticks dropped first in Jolly Jockey and later in Shooting – we would have blamed the bright sun except we were in shade both times. And then when putting sticks back in the stick bag, one sprang back and caused an instant bleeding lip for Jameson, who spent the rest of the day nursing it. Just an unfortunate accident though, just one of those things, no-one’s fault at all, eh Andy? The day finished for us in Bonn Square with a very precise and well received Fairies, followed by Knees Up, which atoned somewhat for the preceding not-great Shooting. But overall a fabulous day!
