We Country Folk

I love where I live.

I have always loved it.

Today was an example of why I love it so. The annual horticultural show - a do-not-miss event in the village - has been a staple of village life for as long as I can remember. The day is primarily an exhibition, with many people submitting their finest flowers, vegetables, handicrafts and cakes for inspection and potential reward. I have volunteered as a cake judge on many an occasion, but they have yet to take me up on it...

Around the edges of the central tent where all the entries are kept are various stalls and vans selling their wares. You spend a jolly pleasant afternoon wandering between food stalls and cider stalls and beautiful craft stalls until eventually, having wended your way through the exhibition tent and oohed & aahed over the displays therein, you emerge, blinking, back into the sunlight where you discover...

Men throwing sticks at each other's heads. (All part of a traditional Morris dance, apparently, although I suspect their terrified bonhomie should have been a little less obvious).

And then you rather wonder what it is about country folk that make us so barking mad. "Why yes! I will tie bells to my legs and stick feathers in my hat and dance around with a large wooden cudgel which I will toss through the air to my dancing partner!"

Mad as I find it, it is rather beautiful to watch. And I always feel summer has arrived when I see the Morris men dancing at the village show.