Could be YOU next year, have a go on 24/10 for Open Day – details on our website.
We’ve had another great dancing season! Every year we dance at great pubs with good friends, enjoy days/weekends away, perform at folk festivals, often head and abroad and get to go to some great events. Hope you enjoy our blog of a weekend event at Highclere (home of Downton Abbey).
Once again, we were delighted to have been invited back to Highclere Castle to participate in the Magic of the Movies event.
As usual the intrepid hard core arrived at Oakley Farm Caravan Park late afternoon on
Friday to pitch their campervans, caravans and tents. Phil, Gunther and Andy in their small
tents and Aidan in his St Pauls Cathedral!
Beers and dinner were taken at The Woodpecker, a very friendly pub just a few minutes walk
from the campsite. Arkells 3B on tap and tasty meals provided although the chips were a
little on the thin side. We regretted not upgrading our chips to chunky chips for a small extra
cost. We’ll do that tomorrow.
Saturday started with a quick bacon buttie provided by Ian Y and then off we went to the
castle. We performed at several dance spots around the castle much to the delight of the
audiences. Many visitors were from overseas with a high contingency from America and
many of those were on a Viking Cruise tour. Everybody was intrigued by who we were and
what we were doing and asked lots of questions.
That evening we were back down The Woodpecker for drinks and dinner. This time we
ordered chunky chips. You just can’t beat a real thick chunk of fluffy potato in a nice crispy
batter. But what’s this! Gasp! Horror! Call this chunky??? By our estimate the chunky chips
were no more than 5mm wide. Surely that’s not chunky? What does Google say? Google
says 1.5 -2cm wide. After much amusement one of the team did question this with the staff
who did agree they weren’t that chunky after all and to their credit didn’t charge us. In fact
The Woodpecker is a very friendly pub that does serve great beer and great food. Just watch
out for the chips!
The next morning the rain came down just as we were decamping. There’s nothing like
packing up a wet soggy tent in the pouring rain! Anyway we scoffed another bacon buttie
and headed back to the castle. By now the rain had eased off and so we were able to
continue our performance. A slightly reduced but still enthusiastic crowd greeted us.
By the
end of the weekend we had danced pretty much every dance in our repertoire and were
feeling the effects of our exertions. It was another cracking weekend of fun and dance at
Highclere Castle!
Performers: Steve Betts, Chris Chapple, Gunther Clasen, Keith Colbert, Barry Crossman,
Peter de Courcy, Chris Franklin, Phil Goddard,
