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Swanage Folk Festival - part one
Sep. 6th, 2025 07:25 pm
Fabulous weather for the dancing today along the sea front at Swanage. Sunshine, and a brisk wind to set the rags and ribbons of the Morris dancers in motion.
( Part one )
Midsummer on Portland
Jun. 20th, 2025 01:47 pmWonderful midsummer evening dance out on the Isle of Portland yesterday evening. Half a dozen local morris sides on the little promenade outside the Cove Inn, overlooking Chesil Beach, dancing the sun down. It had been horribly hot & humid all day, but, down on Portland, a fresh easterly breeze was trying to steal the feathers from the morris dancers' hats, and it was lovely and wild and cool.
We only had five dancers willing to make the journey down to Portland, but my sister pressganged my niece into joining in, so we could do a few six person dances. And it was a lovely evening, the dancing relaxed and fun. We only had to do four dances, and got to enjoy watching all the other sides.
I'm beginning to understand that there are two separate elements to dancing out in summer. There is the performance element, which puts you under pressure to entertain crowds at folk festivals. Then there is the much more informal dancing you do in company with other dancers, merely for the joy of dancing, with its elements of celebration and ritual. Sometimes, rarely, the two elements come together - as they did at Lyme Regis Day of Dance last year. But they absolutely failed to come together at Wimborne this year: it was entirely performance, and it was not enjoyable at all.
***
I took my camera last night. Took some pictures. Or thought I did. But it turns out there was no memory card in my camera, because I had taken it out to use as a spare while I was away.
We only had five dancers willing to make the journey down to Portland, but my sister pressganged my niece into joining in, so we could do a few six person dances. And it was a lovely evening, the dancing relaxed and fun. We only had to do four dances, and got to enjoy watching all the other sides.
I'm beginning to understand that there are two separate elements to dancing out in summer. There is the performance element, which puts you under pressure to entertain crowds at folk festivals. Then there is the much more informal dancing you do in company with other dancers, merely for the joy of dancing, with its elements of celebration and ritual. Sometimes, rarely, the two elements come together - as they did at Lyme Regis Day of Dance last year. But they absolutely failed to come together at Wimborne this year: it was entirely performance, and it was not enjoyable at all.
***
I took my camera last night. Took some pictures. Or thought I did. But it turns out there was no memory card in my camera, because I had taken it out to use as a spare while I was away.
Green Man Festival 2025
May. 12th, 2025 08:02 pm
Dancers and stalls at the Green Man Festival, Bradford on Avon. I don't remember the festival being quite this busy and crowded last year. Perhaps because the festival was being co-run by the town council this year, and the pound signs lit up in their eyes at the prospect of renting street stall spaces to as many sellers as possible?
The atmosphere was still wonderful - a little like being at a medieval great fair - but I did struggle a bit with the crowds.
( A few snatched photos )
Wessex Folk Festival 2024
Jun. 3rd, 2024 06:15 pm
I put the zoom lens on the camera when I went to the folk festival yesterday, and tried to snatch some portrait shots between dances.
( Portraits are not my forte )
The car is the star
Jan. 13th, 2024 11:44 amMy car is back. I celebrated by going to the supermarket this morning. *sighs* Well, it's not like there's any daylight out there for photography, anyway... So. Very. Grey.
Very impressed with the garage I used yesterday. (Not my usual family garage, who were too busy to fit my car in for a service this month). They sent me a little 5-minute video of my car, up on the vehicle lift, filming all the parts they had inspected and that were fine, and all the parts they had inspected and that needed attention: perished suspension brushes, one tyre with the tread only just legal.
What a brilliant idea.
( Nothing in particular )
Very impressed with the garage I used yesterday. (Not my usual family garage, who were too busy to fit my car in for a service this month). They sent me a little 5-minute video of my car, up on the vehicle lift, filming all the parts they had inspected and that were fine, and all the parts they had inspected and that needed attention: perished suspension brushes, one tyre with the tread only just legal.
What a brilliant idea.
( Nothing in particular )
Swanage Folk festival
Sep. 11th, 2023 04:59 pmNo photos of Swanage Folk Festival this year, since it was too hot to venture outside on Saturday, and I was dancing out there yesterday. (People were taking photos of me, which I suppose is payback for all the photos I've taken of dancers in previous years).
It poured with rain on the journey there, and I was thinking "Hurrah, it will be cool, and we will be dancing in the rain, and no-one will be watching." But no, it stopped raining soon after we arrived. The sun came out. It was hot and humid. There were crowds.
We were allocated three dance spots, alternating with other sides. I was too nervous to enjoy the dancing much, too busy concentrating on where I had to be, too busy counting in my head. It all went well until the third set, when we did the Dance That Sometimes Goes Horribly Wrong, and it went horribly wrong. (It's an ambitious, complicated, eight person dance, and when it goes right it is impressive. But all it takes is for one person to be in the wrong place, and then it becomes a game of dodge-seven-randomly-moving-people...)
But we managed to finish the dance, somehow. Spirits picked up for the final dance, and there was some laughter and a bit of banter as we danced, so the season's dancing out finished on a good note.
***
For the two days of the festival, Swanage is full of Morris dancers. I think there were something like sixty different dance sides dancing over the two days.
Walking between dance spots, we passed a woman complaining, "Bloody Morris dancers! If it wasn't for them, we would be able to get a table at the café..."
Which seemed quite amusing when she was walking along, oblivious, surrounded by people wearing bells and sinister tall feathery hats.
***
My sister, walking back to the car park, not wearing bells: "I am in stealth mode."
It poured with rain on the journey there, and I was thinking "Hurrah, it will be cool, and we will be dancing in the rain, and no-one will be watching." But no, it stopped raining soon after we arrived. The sun came out. It was hot and humid. There were crowds.
We were allocated three dance spots, alternating with other sides. I was too nervous to enjoy the dancing much, too busy concentrating on where I had to be, too busy counting in my head. It all went well until the third set, when we did the Dance That Sometimes Goes Horribly Wrong, and it went horribly wrong. (It's an ambitious, complicated, eight person dance, and when it goes right it is impressive. But all it takes is for one person to be in the wrong place, and then it becomes a game of dodge-seven-randomly-moving-people...)
But we managed to finish the dance, somehow. Spirits picked up for the final dance, and there was some laughter and a bit of banter as we danced, so the season's dancing out finished on a good note.
***
For the two days of the festival, Swanage is full of Morris dancers. I think there were something like sixty different dance sides dancing over the two days.
Walking between dance spots, we passed a woman complaining, "Bloody Morris dancers! If it wasn't for them, we would be able to get a table at the café..."
Which seemed quite amusing when she was walking along, oblivious, surrounded by people wearing bells and sinister tall feathery hats.
***
My sister, walking back to the car park, not wearing bells: "I am in stealth mode."
The Hebe has visitors
Aug. 5th, 2023 10:36 am
A few years ago, a friend gave me a tiny Hebe plant, and I had nowhere sunny to plant it, so I stuck in a small pot in front of the house, just for the time being. It's now a very big Hebe plant, still growing in a very small pot. But somehow it thrives. And the bees and the hoverflies love it.
Hornet Mimic hoverfly (Volucella zonaria). Very big, and in flight, remarkably hornet-like. I'm seeing lots of them this year.
Photos taken last week. Today it's rain and gales again. Strong enough winds for the Met Office to reach for their book of names: Storm Antoni. I haven't been out yet, just stood at the kitchen window a while watching the rain blowing by in curtains.
( There is no shortcut to the middle of nowhere )
Wimborne Folk Festival
Jun. 12th, 2023 05:29 pm
Yesterday it rained, for the first times in weeks: just in time for Wimborne Folk Festival.
( A few shots snatched from under an umbrella )
(no subject)
Apr. 1st, 2023 10:59 amGrey. Drizzly. But not cold. And the wind has finally dropped. More heavy rain forecast at lunchtime, so I decided against any expeditions. I'm hoping for a day of hoovering & household accounts, followed by tea and television.
( Nothing-in-particular )
( Nothing-in-particular )
