Manic grimaces, delighted smiles, jolly grins and rampant enthusiasm!

We were back in Sidmouth today for the 2025 folk festival. When I say ‘we’ I mean  the Weston Ukulele Players, aka WUPs. I don’t play the uke or any other musical instrument but husband plays the bass guitar in the band to give them some ‘bottom’ as he says.

We travelled by coach and arrived in plenty of time to set up  for the first set. The weather was fine, dry, sunny but with clouds so we weren’t too hot, and there were plenty of people about. WUPs were playing on the Esplanade, busking in effect if a thirty odd band can be described as buskers. They choose modern songs (no George Formby, thank goodness) singalong songs from the 60’s up to the 20’s, including plenty of classics, cracking along to get the audience joining in and even dancing.

I confess that although I appreciate their skill and expertise and applaud their hard work (through the donation bucket, last year they raised over £10,000 for the children’s hospice at Wraxhall, North Somerset) it really isn’t my sort of music so I wandered off and had a look at the other dancers and singers. Some cracking crews were performing – I particularly enjoy the clog and tap dancers, such energy and enthusiasm, such jolly faces – sometimes made up in garish colours,  such screeches and whoops, swords,  sabres, staves and staffs wielded and cracked, manic grimaces, delighted smiles, jolly grins and rampant enthusiasm!

After WUPs first gig there was a gap of several hours, so we wandered into the town itself, found coffee and bookshops and ended up in the small park just off the seafront where we sat and watched festival goers and performers pass by. There was a patch of grass near us, on which a young couple, maybe in their early twenties, were practising acrobatics. He lifted her and held her in the air with one one hand, she balanced on his shoulders and even on his head – yes, she stood upright on his head! It was not a performance but a rehearsal, which in a way was more interesting as you could see how their act was developing.

We wandered back to the Esplanade, stopping for an ice-cream (he had clotted cream, I had ginger and lemon) and then  it was time for WUPs round 2, I mean the second set. It was a great show and for me the highlight was when two strangers began to jive to one of the numbers. I’m in awe of anyone who can jive, and these two were strangers to each other!! There is certainly a story to be written here!

Back on the coach and we headed home, and I realised my phone was missing. I glowered all the way back to Weston-super-Mare, trying to guess what processes I’d have to go through to try and find it and if not what procedures to make sure anyone finding it couldn’t use it in an unhelpful way. Thankfully, when we got off the coach, I found it on the floor! A happy ending!

PS Husband bought a djembe he found in a charity shop.