Morris, Molly and the Mummers

I have knitting to blog. Quite a lot of knitting, in fact. But yesterday I went to Ely Folk Festival with friends, and there were colourful things... From the colour of the sky on these photos you can tell the weather was... changeable. But it's a small festival, so when the heavens opened, as they did twice fairly spectacularly for about 10 minutes' each, there's enough tent space to cower under.

First the Morris - women's morris, in fact. There was a display by one side of men's morris while we were watching, but I was chatting to a friend while that was going on. Here are some women and girls from the Young Miscellany Folk Dance Group.

Then the Gog Magog Molly - I've blogged them before (although possibly not explained that the Gogs are the names for the nearest things to hills we have around Cambridge, and are related to Wandlebury Hill Fort); a mixed side entirely in mad colours.

And which traditional East Anglian song were they dancing to with their squeezebox and violin, you might ask? Erm... The Lion Sleeps Tonight (and if you follow that link, you'll be reminded that they don't make videos like they used to. Thank God.)

Some of the Morris sides are seriously scary. Here's one of the Witchmen (who advertise Morris from the Daarkside) with his regalia. The top hats with pheasant feathers, painted faces and great big sticks are quite threatening. (The sunglasses and umbrella somewhat less so.) Didn't see them dance this time - but saw them in Ely market place a couple of years ago, and they were impressive.

After the morris, there were the Bradshaw Mummers, performing a hilarious version of Robin Hood. This guy was the Crusader who was vanquished by Robin Hood, and did a cod Monty-Python French-type-person accent...

I'm not sure who the guy with the camera was, but he was interviewing Phil Beer a bit later - am hoping the festival will have something on their site if it was more than the local news...

OK, on to the music. Highlight of the afternoon was Martin Simpson; who turned up onto the stage immediately after the previous act, strummed a couple of chords and was ready to go about 90 seconds later...

Great stuff - blistering guitar and great singing and a combination of traditional English folk, bluegrass, bayou and anything in between...

Second up in the evening were Mawkin:Causley, presumably slightly affected by Jim Causley having had a "blonde moment" (after acquiring a new hairdo and bleach-job in the morning, he'd then left his accordian at home by mistake; although he did inform us he had a full array of haircare products with him instead)... not that you'd tell by their performance. Brilliant high-energy stuff, and I'll be back at Ely in October when they're on at the folk club. Two full-length tracks available at the above link...

And then the highlight of the evening, and probably the reason the festival sold out in advance for the first time in its history. I have something of a tradition on this blog of including execrably out-of-focus photos of Show of Hands, and now that they're headliners and performing after dark at these things, this streak seems doomed to continue - Phil, Steve and Miranda in blurry glory.

Hardly needs saying that they were fantastic. They always are. One new song, one solo song from Miranda, and a mix of old and new which will probably have converted the three and a half people who didn't turn up for them in the first place as well as making their usual following very happy...

Until it got dark I did do a bit of knitting - here's a Firestarter sock, in this time's Rocking Sock Club colour The Incredible Shrinking Violet. The club pattern was also by Yarnissima, but after I'd knitted a bit, it didn't appeal, so I reverted to one of her earlier patterns...

I was wearing one pair of my knitted socks under hiking boots yesterday; and then in the middle of the night was so cold that I got up and found a blanket and another pair of socks to wear in bed. On July 12th. Summer??? The weather's better today - let's hope all that dancing has done some good...