Sunday morning proved rather more amenable, weather-wise, and we weren’t expecting much boat traffic (no hire movements and the Thames still on red boards), so we risked venturing into town, only to find more morris dancers. Yateley were in Gloucester Green – our friend Ian from Tuesday Night is dancing, so there’s no-one watching Song & Dance. Fingers crossed. Not sure what the chap in Tatters and Port and Starboard socks was doing, but at least he’s got the socks on the right way: his companion looks suitably awe-struck.

The festival was using the Philosophy section of Blackwell’s Norrington Room as a music venue, deep in the dark underground. Must be 30 years since I last ventured into the depths of Blackwells, and had forgotten what an astonishing place it is. Managed to find a copy of Michael Houghton’s biography of Sandy Denny, too, recently recommended by someone who knows my musical tastes only too well.

Bampton Traditional Morris were  capering outside The Sheldonian Theatre – last time we were here it was mobbed by new undergraduates all in sub-fusc on Matriculation Day. At least Bampton Morris looked as though they knew what the were doing, which is more than the students did. They were sharing the pitch with Chiltern Hundreds Clog Morris.

By now fearing for Song & Dance’s moorings, an early return found the pins well pulled about (someone had kindly put the front ones back in) and what appeared to be a space opened up a hundred yards downstream with proper cemented-in mooring rings. A hasty whip round untying the boat and moving down (before anyone else noticed) led to the discovery that the space was approximately 12 inches too short. The crew of Baguette – now there’s an odd name for a British narrowboat – were aboard and happy to re-position her forward the requisite foot, so that was fine. They’d been there for a week waiting for the Thames to become navigable, and said they’d enjoy a change of view…

Fran and Sue managed to find the cunningly moved boat, Sue was suitably despatched onto a train home, and we went for Steak Frites and a bottle, to end a pleasant weekend. All was well with the world… or so we thought.

Sir had given the Quartermaster the weekend off to go Morris Dancing around Oxford in the cold – there’s no accounting for taste. With an 11:00 start outside the Pitt Rivers museum and Sue (a morris dancer, and – as it happened – our first guest to stay overnight) needing to be collected from the station, we were somewhat bemused during breakfast to find quite heavy wet snow falling. The first we’d seen all winter, and it had to wait until mid-April! Fortunately, there were quite a few boat movements expected, so the First Officer was unable to join them, needing to ensure no other idiots dragged out the mooring pins, and to be on standby to move the boat if a safer spot became available.

The museum took pity on the dancers and let them dance inside (why?).

The above pictures courtesy of Shirley Dixon  and nicked from Farcebook – see if you can spot the dinosaurs. Rather like the sign over the musicians, too. Apparently they all retired to a pub for lunch: I shudder to think what was in the pork pies…

With our friends from Yateley Morris and Cropredy Marina (moored just behind us on their boat Tuesday Night) saying they were staying put for the afternoon and would keep an eye on Song & Dance, a visit to town to see the afternoon dancing was risked, particularly as the precipitation had stopped, and the venue was the indoor market.

Joined by the Ridgeway Stepdancers, Jackstraws managed to get their lines straight (at least while stationary) – the liquid lunch hadn’t done too much damage.

Back in the real world, the sun had come out in Broad Street, and lots of people were dancing and watching.

This chap seemed to be doing his best not to look like a morris dancer despite the purple face paint, so Jackstraws did their caber-tossing dance. No morris dancer was hurt during the making of this picture.

They even managed to all get airborne at the same time.

These two young girls from Fireclog were attracting considerable interest, too.

On return to the boat, our pins had been put back a couple of times by the Tuesday Night crew, who had then spotted a safer mooring and nabbed it. That’ll teach me to go and watch morris dancers.

After hosing down the sweaty dancers, Biggles stayed in charge on board while the three of us hoped for no more boats moving that evening, went to eat at a nearby Lebanese restaurant, then got hot and sweaty dancing in St. Barnabas’ church to the estimable Simon Care Trio.