Friday and Saturday were Mons Meg-heavy.
Friday saw us doing a tour of pubs from Newington inwards towards the centre of Edinburgh. We had never danced along there before and managed seven dances with three knock-backs (including one which I enjoyed – “Christ no! If you started dancing the customers would too..”).
The first dance, in The Reverie was a good one and that gave us a lot of confidence for the night and I think only the last dance of the night, by which time we had had one or two beers, was the only dodgy one. We discovered a great pub of which we were previously unaware – The Maltings on St. Leonards Street – and also danced in The Southsider, The Greenmantle (nice that it’s got its old name back), Sandy Bell’s, The Doctors and back to The Maltings. All were pubs with decent beer, which was deadly.
Sandy Bell’s was an odd one. We had a very tight space to dance, which we managed, and the landlord gave us a round on the house which was great. The session players were accommodating which was nice of them. There were one or two oddballs in the audience though, including one who loftily advised us that “we don’t do dancing in here”. As I have been there on a previous occasion when The Kingsmen danced there I’m afraid the curse of the Black Swan demolishes her argument.
No Andy on Friday so I did the calling on songs myself which meant that when I awoke on Saturday morning I had a throat like gravel (as well as the strangest feeling, as though I had consumed several beers…). But Saturday saw a full day Mons Meg training session.
This was also great fun even though we were all tired I think. We worked hard on getting the Winlaton dance sorted out although we still need to sort out the ending. We experimented with finishing with a backlock, which I think shows promise, although not all agree with me! We shall see. The dance itself is about ready except for that ending. We also had a new musician along playing small pipes and that was good, although it took a while for him to get used to us and settle on some tunes. I realy enjoyed it but came home last night and fell asleep on the settee, waking up just in time to go to bed!
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