Following the events in the first half of the year (see 2009 diary for more details), and our traditional summer solstice evening out at Avebury with Holt Morris on 18th June, July saw us continue on our travels. First up was the Icknield Way Day of Dance in Wantage on 4th Jul, which included some good dancing around the town, and a show spot in the inspiring surroundings of the walkway next to Tesco. Then a sunny evening out with Jackstraws at the Cricketers, Hartley Wintney, on 9th July was followed by a damper evening on the 16th July with Mayflower at the Old Wheatsheaf, Frimley Green. On Saturday 18 Jul we were in Windsor for one of Windsor Morris’s well organised Days of Dance, followed in the evening by a guest appearance at Cecil Sharp House for a spot during the Paula Woods birthday ceilidh. The spot went very well, only slightly inhibited by the rather large pizzas we had unwisely scoffed beforehand as we tend to do on such occasions.
The weekend of 25th/26th July saw us again at the Warwick Festival, where on the Saturday we enjoyed the sunshine, the dancing, the procession-that-never-seems-to-end, and the almost inevitable dance in the children’s paddling pool at the end of the procession. With no evening spot to do, we were able to indulge ourselves on the campsite with yet more Dominos pizza, and as usual we severely overestimated the amount we actually needed, suggesting the new BB slogan – “Berkshire Bedlam – never knowingly underpizza’d”. Sunday started for us with an outdoor workshop in the Market Place, where we taught Sucking the Monkey to unsuspecting members of the public (or was it the other way round in some cases?) followed by an excellent lunchtime session outside the Zetland, and a final set back at the school / campsite.
On Sunday 2nd August we found ourselves with enough BBs at the Sidmouth Festival to be able to do a lunchtime spot on the prom along with all the other usual sides there, and another later spot also on the seafront on our own. And a special mention to Alun, Mark and Will M who acquitted themselves extremely well again in the afternoon’s jig competition. And then on Sunday 23rd August it was yet another bizarre event to add to the rich vein of bizarre events of recent years. In 2005 we took part in an episode of ‘Chucklevision’ for CBBC, dressed as Bavarian dancers, and had a great deal of fun doing it. The producer of that episode, Jack Jameson, liked us and invited us to take part in an episode of another CBBC programme he was producing called Spacehoppers. This is a children’s science programme, presented by Big Cook Little Cook presenters Dan and Steve, and in this episode we were asked to be dressed in our regular morris kit and take part in a number of sequences which attempted to explain something about planets and their smells in an amusing and educational way. Filming took place at Littlewick Green on a very hot August afternoon, and with Sue and Bob providing some of our regular (but non copyright) music we did a number of dance and other sequences, interacting with the presenters, and including one sequence in which one of them moved amongst us blindfolded, detecting smells of things we were carrying, while we orbited round doing parts of our Schrödingers Hat dance. Jameson got a whole line of script at one point (fortunately without too many ‘r’s in it) during a sequence where everyone got to sit crammed on a bench having tea together (if this all sounds a bit bizarre, it’s basically because it was). The filming took all of the afternoon, with many sequences being filmed several times, and some reshot because local people in the houses around the green had been inconsiderate enough to appear in the distance, or get in their cars and drive off. Some people, eh? We think the filming went well, but are all curious to see what the final programme looks like in early 2010!
Wallingford Bunkfest was next, on 5th September – another good day, with spots around town and on the Kinecroft Main stage, and topped as usual by the main event of the day, a well attended Chunkfest at Sue’s. Local supermarkets have apparently got to hear about this now, and stock up for some weeks beforehand with the copious amounts of tinned pineapple and evap which we get through these days. Nice to see these traditions carrying on over the years …..
And then the last event of the main season, the Tenterden Folk Festival, which we went to on Sat 3rd October. Based in the Kent town of Tenterden, the festival features many morris teams from Kent, the South East, and further afield, and we enjoyed a good days dancing followed by a procession (not sure about processing in and out of the lingerie shop but it passed a few moments) and fine performance of Fairies in the show spot at the end of the day.
The end of the main dance season is never the end of BB’s activities for the year though and next up on Sat 28 Nov was the annual Bunfight ceilidh, featuring this year the fabulous Committee Band with caller Nick Walden – their popularity evidenced by the first ever Bunfight sell out. This year’s theme was ‘Circus’, and once again some great outfits were on show from some of our guests. The band played some great dance music throughout the evening, interspersed with a couple of breaks – the first one featuring (as well as the inevitable Irish Bingo) young Will, Mark and Alun performing a fine version of their 3 person jig based on the BB Boggle dance and named for the night ‘Jiggle’. This also featured a unique BB musicians line up, with Jane and Bob being helped out by Emma on accordeon, covering for Sue who was off climbing mountains in Egypt.
The second spot showcased the unique talents of 16 of the BB All Stars Cheerleaders, specially trained for the evening by Steph, who performed a routine based on The Cartoons version of Witch Doctor, ending up with hoisting our 3 younger lads skywards. Amazingly the audience insisted on seeing this again (possibly helped by Nick telling them to), and in order to inject a bit of variety, the second time through the routine went slightly wrong in different places from where it had gone slightly wrong the first time. But overall another excellent night, and once again a fine team effort to make it all happen and ensure everyone had a great time – aided considerably by having such a fine band and caller.
The next day saw those of us still standing after the night before out in Wokingham for the Wokingham Winter Carnival. For reasons too tricky to go into, ourselves and Borderline were the only Morris sides there, but BB performed creditably in between the showers, and had a good joint spot with Borderline in the early afternoon before heavier rains wiped out the rest of the day.
The Xmas dinner on Thurs 17 Dec saw Santa dish out the usual amazing array of Secret Santa presents, just after Paul had gone out of the room, missing Santa again for the third year in a row. A light covering of snow settled during the evening, which unknown to all present was to be the precursor to several weeks of snow and biting cold weather. Some snow was still around on Saturday 19th when we made our traditional last Saturday before Xmas lunchtime appearance in Wokingham Market Place – and at one point Jameson managed to secrete some snow in his Coconut shell, ready to splat Lee highly effectively during the first chorus of the coconut dance. The day concluded with an afternoon at Jameson and Emma’s new library-masquerading-as-a-house, where everyone had a good time providing they didn’t actually touch any of the books.
And so, on to 2010!