25th February saw us appear on a bright but very cold Saturday in Cambridge at the Inter Varsity Folk Dance Festival, (IVFDF for short), a student run event hosted by different universities each year. The day featured dancing at various venues in and around the city centre, with generally enthusiastic audiences even if at some venues they were mainly other teams and hangers-on. A special mention also to our excellent organiser, ‘lucky’ Emma, although sadly ‘lucky’ Emma’s efforts in choosing numbers on behalf of the team for the 17 tickets we had for National Lottery draw later in the day proved to be even more hopeless than all of our many previous attempts. The day was rounded off for us with a ceilidh spot at the Junction 24 ceilidh, and the 3 dance spot (which included our sword dance) went down extremely well with a very receptive and appreciative audience.
Saturday 18th March saw a small BB contingent once again attend the Fezheads Fig n Date Fayre, this time held in Kenn near Exeter. After 2 ‘sensible’ dances (if Coconuts and the premiere of ‘Knees Up’ (“it made me laugh”) can be called sensible) the day degenerated into the reason everyone was there i.e. frivolous games such as Fruit Conkers, some belly dancing, and Tim’s now annual entry into the Fezheads ‘Fig or Die’ game, a game in which you have to eat chilli figs until you lose or are extremely ill or both in Tim’s case – though he very creditably got down to the last 2 again.
On 23rd April we joined Hook Eagle and several other local teams for a St. George’s Day extravaganza, though old George would have been a bit disappointed with the weather on his special day which tended to the damp and the miserable, though of course at no stage did it rain (properly) on BB, oh no. Jane was able to make this event with us, and showed that she had not forgotten how any of the dances went, unlike ….. oh, let’s not go there. However our repertoire on the day did feature our rehabilitated Albemarle’s Hop, and a suitably cheesy ‘Knees Up’, filmed in all its glory for a student dissertation – wonder what the examiners will make of it?! The day finished with Andy being presented with an inscribed tankard from the landlord of the Waterwitch for no particularly good reason, which we also found only works left handed..
The following Sunday, 30th April, we made an afternoon appearance at the Reading Beer Festival, an event featuring predominantly beer (the clue’s in the name), and held at King’s Meadow in Reading. At the particular time we were there, there were lots of people and no other organised entertainment, so by default we drew some reasonable audiences, who being full of beer seemed quite well disposed towards us. But we all enjoyed the event, and found we had a very friendly reaction during the afternoon. Indeed the world certainly seemed a very happy place to us through our beer tinted glasses…..