Then on the weekend of 26/27 Jul we were off to the Warwick Folk Festival, the first time we had appeared there for 5 years. Another hot weekend saw us at a range of venues around town and at the main festival site at Warwick School, a great venue for the festival with extensive grounds for camping as well as a mix of modern and older buildings used for concerts, ceilidhs, workshops, displays etc. It also has a modern swimming pool available for festival goers use which several of our party took advantage of.
Those who arrived on the Friday evening established camp on the Far Field – a good location by day, slightly less good at night if camping near the B****side Mummers. And Saturday started in a challenging way for Andy on the campsite, who contrived while getting into kit to lock his car keys in his boot where they were obstinately ungetatable. As a consequence, while the rest of the group was making its way through the campsite in kit to the first dance spot, Andy was making his way in the opposite direction through the campsite in an AA van. But notwithstanding that it was a great weekend with 2 particular highlights for us – the first on the Saturday evening when we had 28 for the customary takeaway pizzas on the campsite, with the compulsory game of garlic dip roulette to follow (splat those tents!). The second occurred a little later the same evening when, suitably refreshed with pizza, we had a late evening ceilidh spot in the Tickled Pink ceilidh in the Guy Nelson Hall. The spot consisted of 1 – 6, 10 man Jolly Jockey, Stage Coconuts, and a testosterone (and pizza) fuelled Sword Dance to finish the set, all of which went extremely well. The spots the next day also included one in Warwick Castle, which for many years had not been used by the festival but which provided an excellent location with appreciative audiences. Our dancing finished with a Fairies and a Magic Arch, which Mortimers had been primed to run through. This they duly did in fine style, but from the bottom end of the set, thereby almost running headlong into Sue and Bob, casually strolling down from the top end as they usually do. But great fun overall – when are we coming back, Sally??
