LATEST Events

Our Christmas events were Threefold

(A) Dancing on tuesday eve in St Annes Square for Manchester's Christmas markets where we tried out
costume changes for the Festive period e.g.silly hats and lights etc.

(B) Rochester Dickensian Christmas Festival - in Kent.
Three teams then gathered in the Arrow under the direction
of Bill and Margaret King.
Anstey Royal Chalfont provided a royal supper in the form
of Melton Mowbray pies and we provided the port to compliment
each morsel.

The Saturday dancing was punctuated by sessions in the Jolly Knight pub to render seasonal songs and tunes including "Sunshine Mountain" with the Landlady - Margaret-joining in in fine style. Evening meals were booked at the Dragon Inn Chinese Restaurant followed by a further spate of songs tunes and dancing in the cellar bar.

Late evening celebrations back at the digs brought an engineering miracle as the Squire's bed was compromised and a hasty solution (pun?) was found to support Bill's broken bed.

Seasons Greetings to all our readers

January and February are our workshop months

and we have completed two

One :- At Lytham for a one day workshop with Fylde Coast Cloggies at which we "taught on" a dance learnt from the team featured in the second workshop.
The dance is called Clarendon. We were taught, in this dance swap, one called Briggate
by the redoubtable Alison, dancer with many northern sides including Fylde Coast.

Two:- A weekend at Kenilworth being the guests of Chinewrdre. We started with our own dance "Littlemoor" causing much comment, and after lunch we were put through Chine's "Robert Dudley" which in turn gave us plenty to think about.
Each member of Stockport became the guest of some member of the home side and being fed and watered proceeded to an evening of songs, games and Elvis ?
The weather being glorious we danced out for Sunday lunch time at the same pub in Royal Leamington Spa.

Stockport are extremely grateful for the Hospitality shown to us by Chinewrdre . . . . .Great !

Rochester Sweeps Festival, Kent

We were beset by becoming legless but not in the morris sense of the word. All arrived on Friday eve
and jollied in the "Arrow". Steve however decided to try a backflip on the memorial steps and pulled a muscle.
One down !
Saturday morning we moved to buy a breakfast in town and duly set off. Crossing the park Gordon did the dance of the dying swan and ended up in hospital with a broken left leg.
Two down !
We were short handed as a side and were now even shorter as Dot and Bill "the pump" were doing paramedic things. So that left Jules, David and Mich to be Stockport amongst all those other sides that do the Sweeps.

With all the medical happenings we still went forth to the far south west and joined
Winkleigh morris
for their weekend in Devon in between Okehampton and Barnstaple.

Several sides were in evidence including Maids of the Mill from the Netherlands, Frog Island from Kent, and Ripley Morris from Nottinghamshire. The tours for us were varied and interesting as it's a long way from Stockport.
Good food and beer stopped us from being home sick !

Our tour started with a display for some French visitors and on a station platform in the morning. By the end of the day we had travelled south and near Lydford Gorge, on the way to Tavistock.

Our Weekend of whatever at Theale

Our usual tour of the village of Theale was tempered by rough weather and a friendlier atmosphere at the Panborough than previosly experienced. Copious amounts of refreshment was consumed to wash down the ever present BBQ. The weather caused us to depitch the marquees ( or what was left of them ) on the Sat eveening after what was to have been our Christmas Party !

Rose and Castle and Queen's Oak Weekend

Stockport had not been here before so another new event for us. Camping on a rugby club in deepest Northamptonshire we sallied forth on a tour of a lot of that county the pictures doing the event more justice than words.

Sunday involved striking camp and donning kit to travel to Stoke Bruerne on the Grand Union canal. We danced on
an island inbetween two canal cuttings, making sure that Steve was not given a waterside berth in any dances.