I've rarely had so much fun at a festival as I had at this year's Sidmouth. Agree entirely that one of the main reasons for this was the young people piling in - I've not seen so many young people at a folk festival since I was their age! Big big credit to Mrs Casey and the Shooting Roots gang who have brought this aspect on over the past years, even though it can hardly be a moneyspinner to present all those free workshops and courses.

Bellowhead - and their crazy audience - in the Dance House were the best thing I saw all week. Closely followed by Emily Portman & Lauren McCormick in the Bedford, and Morris Offspring's interval spot in the Oysters ceilidh (just when I thought it was getting boring with the likes of Show Of Hands being put on at LNE time!). The Ham Marquee was marginally lesss staid than usual - it's hard to get an atmosphere with rows and rows of portly greybeards slumbering in the heat, even for artists as good as Crucible, Banditaliana and Danu. Anchor Gardens usual fun dancing on a slope in hot sun, particularly liked Committee Band.

But as Verity Sharp said on World Routes on Radio 3 on Saturday (I think you can hear it for a week by using the BBC Replayer thingy), the place to be was the Dance House. Whapweasel & Tiger Moth LNEs were so packed you could hardly find space outside the tent, let alone on the dancefloor, but both were great - especially the Moths closer with Eliza Carthy, John Adams and Ian Telfer on extra fiddles. Old Swan Band were really good too, and had a bit more breathing space - maybe everybody was knackered after those two previous nights and saving themselves for the Oysters?

I'm sort of glad there will only be an informal watch-this-space one in 2005, according to a posting on the BBC folk board. Anything would be an anticlimax. I think I might get Euro-adventurous and try Dranouter next summer and come back in 2006.

Merina