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Dancing out is often a distraction from whatever else is on everyone's mind at the time. For example, the football World Cup in Russia has been dominating our TV screens recently and it is so easy for this to take over our lives. However, I have done my best to ignore all of this when writing my report.
Last year, our trip to the Boar's Head Inn near Crowborough for a session with our great friends from PitchDitchling Morris was bathed in sunshine. Thankfully, this year again we avoided any foul weather and enjoyed a wonderful summer's day.
However, the journey to the pub was not as straightforward as it could have been as there was an event on in Tunbridge Wells that seemed to be even more popular than morris dancing — hard to believe! It was Pub In The Park which was a festival of food and music. Who would want to go there when we had food, music, dancing and beer on offer? Although the traffic jams in Tunbridge Wells meant that the journey took extra time, everyone managed to arrive punctually.
Amongst the spectators were Carol (who danced with us for many years) and her husband Brian. It was great to see them both and to catch up on what they have been up to.
With everyone in place, it was time for the dancing to start. We kicked off proceedings with Sidcot and then alternated dances with Ditchling. That gave each team a chance to recover by sitting in the shade and drinking a cool drink while the other side danced. Nothing alcoholic, of course! For the pre-lunch session we also performed Marston 6, Aughton 6 and Shawforth. It was also great to see Ditchling do the famous Adderbury shooting dance.
The pre-ordered food was due to arrive at 1:30pm so this prompted a half-time break for refreshment. The sandwiches that we had were accompanied by some lovely chips — a very pleasant way to restore our energy levels. Much better than oranges!
The second half of the stand was a bit shorter as the hot weather was still unrelenting. We tackled Lostock, Annie's and Milnrow before rounding off the event by throwing in an all-in Churchtown accompanied by Ditchling.
Thanks go to the pub for making us so welcome and to Ditchling for making the afternoon so enjoyable. Also, well done to both bands keeping the dancers in step and not flagging despite the heat. We are now already looking forward to booking our 2019 get-together — hot, sunny weather is obviously guaranteed.
Kettle Bridge Clogs web site by Stephen Cordery is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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