Well, St George's day was a waste of time here in Hawke's Bay (NZ)!
The local Morris side had been invited to dance at a local pub and just to try out the venue we visited there last weekend. Apart from being a bit confined, the manager seemed helpful and so we were happy to dance for them. Because we need breaks (to get the breath back) my husband Mitch was also invited to sing some English songs and I also took along my Geordie pipes, ready for a night to rival St Paddy's night.
We had a few problems - the Squire wasn't back from a trip away but we expected him to arrive partway through the gig, and one of our dancers had broken her arm 2 days before but she insisted on dancing. Also 2 other regular dancers were missing but we decided to carry on anyway.
When we arrived, the place was full of rather loud, drunk young men downstairs and the staff looked at us with anxiety. One of the girls was downright rude and finally someone asked us what was going on. Apparently they had a new manager who only started 2 days earlier and he knew nothing about us. But he let us go ahead anyway.
We danced upstairs, where a large friendly group were having a staff evening out, dinner at the pub, and they were an appreciative audience, but space was very limited and loud shouts kept wafting up from the boys downstairs. With only limited dancers we managed 4 dances which were well received by the patrons, then Mitch and I tried to sing. By this time the meals were being brought in and our audience started talking so the songs were barely heard. I played a couple of tunes on the pipes, then a local fiddler came to join in and started playing along in the wrong key (NSPipes are in F but our music is written in G and he was following the music)! Then our Squire arrived back from his trip but he had a raging headache and couldn't dance anyway. My husband had to to pay for his drink and my requested drink of water didn't even arrive (the upstairs bar was really hot with all the hot air drifting up from below). So we decided to cut our losses and just go home. As we went downstairs, we saw that the crowd there were watching a football match on a very large screen, hence the shouts and cheers, and also, a notice said that a live band (The Kawekas) were going to be performing there until late.
We won't be going back there again!
Happy St George's Day all!
Robyn