Saturday 29th November was our annual Bunfight ceilidh, once again at the California Ratepayers Hall in Finchampstead, with a theme of ‘Myths and Legends’, featuring Random as the band, and Mr Marvellous himself, Nick Walden, as caller. The Bunfights page has more detail but suffice it to say it was another excellent evening, with a lovely collection of green tighted BBs in a ‘Men in Tights’ show dance later on, preceded by four of our newer younger recruits showing the older members how to do Devil’s Highway. And as usual there were plenty of interesting costumes on show, one or two of which revealed a little more flesh than was altogether wise. The Bunfight was followed the next day by the Wokingham Winter Carnival, once again held on a day when the weather was not being particularly kind i.e. cold and drizzly. But our slightly reduced numbers were swelled by old young Will in plain clothes, and for one dance by a strangely attired though attractive female stallholder, who Jameson cunningly contrived to dance opposite, though he claimed unconvincingly afterwards it was accidental.
The following Saturday we were at the Haddenham one day Festival for a couple of Big Caper performances, consisting of one 40 minute spot of our own, and one 15 minute spot during the excellent Steamchicken ceilidh. Both of these went well, although there were a few instances where the smooth changeovers we had carefully rehearsed three weeks previously got overlooked in the heat of the moment. Overall though these and a few other minor hiccups (flying sticks in Jolly Jockey – blame the spotlights …) got brushed over reasonably successfully. For both of the shows BB had only 7 regular dancers, so in the earlier main show Bob was roped in as the 8th dancer for the sword dance, and a fine job he made of it too. In fact the sword dance went particularly well until just before the end, when a muscle in Jerry’s leg went ping just at the blood curdling shrieking cross over bit. So Jerry completed the cross over and kept going, in a hobbling sort of stumble, out of the set for a nice sit down. This left the rest of us, who hadn’t all seen him go, wonder why every now and again there was a big person sized space in the next clashing figure. Fortunately the dance came towards the end of the show, so a bit of hasty rearrangement of who was doing what after that combined with a bit of winging it saw us through to the end, leaving us time to rearrange the now Jerry-less later spot, while Jerry enjoyed a pint and some peas. This spot marked the last performance of Sue Graham with both the Capering Crew and the Big Caper, but she went out in style with her usual elegant and effortless dancing, as graceful to watch as ever.
December the 18th saw us once again at the Thai House restaurant in Finchampstead for our customary Xmas dinner, with the usual bewildering array of Secret Santa presents, the local pound shops clearly having been given a good pounding beforehand judging by some of the merchandise being given. And once again this year Santa himself appeared at just the right time to dish out the goodies, immediately after Paul had mysteriously disappeared, coincidentally just like last year. When he came back we didn’t really like to tell him what his missus had been up to with Santa….
And then on Saturday 20th came the St. Thomas’s day dance out in Wokingham town centre – our traditional end of the season performance, usually done on the last Saturday before Xmas for reasons lost in the mists of time. Traditionally it’s bitterly cold and often damp too, but this year we had an exceptionally mild and pleasant day, which meant we had a few more spectators than usual. And a treat it was for them too, with no less than 3 new young debutants in kit, with Alun, brother Mark, and Will B. Each of them did exceptionally well, not looking in the slightest out of place, except when they annoyingly jumped higher than some of the more mature members. The day’s repertoire included several of the dances which had been learned during the preceding few weeks, and they were all performed without mishap and with some style, apart perhaps from the odd minor wardrobe malfunction. So as 2008 ended, the team was able to look forward with real anticipation to the new season, and further opportunities for these 3 plus Will M in 2009. Bring it on!!