It was the May Day Fair a
couple of weeks ago. The first May
bank holiday and a glorious weekend.
The weather wasn’t that great initially on the Saturday morning but we
headed up into the market square, passing Jack o’ the Green on the way, wearing
a large, foliage-covered, garland-like framework, covering his body from head
to foot. And looking a tad
wickerman, to be honest. The name
refers to the garland and the tradition dates back to the 16th and
17th centuries in England, revived in Whitstable, Kent in 1976.
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| Not Our Jack o the Green As I Forgot to Photograph Him - But Just to Give You the General Idea |
What a great event this
proved to be, as the sun got hotter and the spirit of May time permeated the
crowd. There were stalls and
snakes, cider and farmyard animals.
The Roman theme meant that people were wandering around in strange
attire. We bumped into loads of
people that we knew. We had coffee
in one of the local cafes, then lunch in the church hall, sitting in the sun.
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| Fun in the High Street |
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| A Roman on stilts...? Is that how Hadrian built that wall so high? |
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| The Mayor - if only she'd bothered to dress up! |
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| My mum's blood nurse! |
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| B the Morris Man |
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| Beautiful Roman Girls |
The Morris dancers were
there. The infamous Icknield Way
Morris Men (http://www.icknieldwaymorrismen.org.uk), who dance in the Vale of the White Horse and whose members include
my ex-colleague, B, who managed to persuade S and C to join in. Despite the pleas that the whole
episode should never be spoken of again, I can’t resist showing you the
brilliance of their cross-ups. Or
should that read ‘cock ups’…
We bumped into some friends
who had not seen the house so left the fair for yet another tour. I might start selling tickets! We then remembered the croquet set that
I had bought the boys at Christmas so had our first match. We didn’t know the rules but that
didn’t stop us. I was last. S won. It must be all the time he spends on the golf course
practicing. I knew it would come
in useful for something. We are
now planning to buy a petanque set so that we can pretend to be in the South of France as we throw metals balls about on the gravel.
And, finally, it was a glorious evening. Remember this?
Well, that evening it looked like this:
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