Monday, October 13, 2008

A mixed weekend

Went to Banbury Folk Festival this weekend - I'd intended to drive there, but the traffic was very heavy and there were lots of a***holes about so I chickened out by the time I'd got to Chippenham!
After some trouble finding the hotel and the Mill Theatre, we settled down to watch the festival's patron, Isla St Clair. A bit different to the normal Folk Festival fayre, she sang North-West Scottish songs, some Burns and of course Speed Bonny Boat. The song "Save Our Glens" went down particularly well with Patrick! I think she was a bit nervous at being in front of the Festival crowd, probably being more used to TV audiences, but she went down a storm!
Uiscedwr were as excellent as ever. Anna was looking happy and healthy, which is good! Cormac Byrne as amazing as ever, and he seems to be sharing the singing and anecdotes now as well. Shame James wasn't with them, I liked his guitar playing and songs.
In the morning, which was beautifully sunny and warm, we went on a blissful trip along the Oxford Canal aboard the "Dancing Duck" dayboat from Tooleys Boatyard. Rob McKinnon was on board, and sung us some wonderful songs which we could join in and sing.
Went to a dance workshop with Herbaceous Border at Saturday lunchtime, but there disaster struck. In a hurry as our food took longer than expected, I dumped my handbag down with the Morris dancer's bags and noticed a small, thin woman with short grey hair standing by them. She offered to look after it for me, which in retrospect should have raised alarm bells, but I took her for the wife of one of the dancers and was in too much of a hurry - as there were a bit crowd of people around I didn't think anyone would dare steal it. However when I finished dancing both the handbag and the woman were gone.
She was probably just after my cash but a lot of other things were in my bag - car key, house keys, mobile phone, bank cards, cheque book, passport, council tax bill, wedding certificate (the last three because of all the name change stuff I'm having to do at the moment). Patrick was concerned about our house being burgled so he drove back to Bath and then we had over an hour's wait for the "emergency" locksmith to turn up (we had been told 6pm but he arrived at 7.10pm).
Then it was drive all the way back to catch Flossie Malaiville and Keith Donnelly at the Town Hall - an unusual combination, possibly a smart career move for Flossie to ink up with someone with lots of contacts in the business, but their music and humour are quite different. We thought Flossie would do better with fellow Brel admirer Robb Johnson. Move to the South Flossie, s'il vous plait!
Biddenden's Cider at the Pegg Inn was delicious but I just wasn't in a drinking mood (unusually, you might say).
Next came Patrick's favourite of the festival, Vin Garbutt. He was on good form despite pharyngitis, cracking some good jokes and singing some thought-provoking songs. I especially liked the song about the New Zealand children - I just hope Gary Glitter never tours there!!
We had a pint or two in the Woolpack, which had a beer festival on (Ossett Porter and Purity Gold very good), then popped back to the Town Hall for Tom Leary and Kevin Dempsey, followed by Waterson:Carthy who ended the festival.
A good little festival - just watch out for Fagin's missus!

1 comment:

Natural Forms Ceramics Course at Stoke-on-Trent College said...

Bad luck about the bag Val :-( Make sure you watch out for any id theft as they've got your id as well.