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Solstice in the Pennines
Last night we danced out on Hartshead Pike. The local countryside service (I've only just realised how odd it is for a metropolitan borough to have a countryside service) organises walks - for dawn on the Winter Solstice, sunset in the summer) and in the summer we Cloggies get there before them and dance for them. Previous years we have had to contend with gale-force winds and driving rain, but this year the weather was absolutely perfect: warm, even on top of the hill, with a tiny breeze.
There were over a hundred walkers. We danced for them, though it was difficult; loose chippings are probably the worst surface in the world to dance on in clogs, and I speak as one who has danced on wet cobbles on a fairly steep slope. Then there were poems and stories and songs, and G sang her song "Mill Girls", which has become a sort of anthem for us. It was prompted by a newspaper article about an old woman who had worked in a mill that was being demolished being given the privilege of pressing the plunger, or turning the switch, or whatever, but turned into a reminiscence of her grandmother's stories and the bunch of girls she went to school and to work with., and we all sang the chorus.
There were some high clouds near the horizon, and in two patches, one on each side, we saw the rainbow effect of the sun shining through the ice crystals - I forget what the proper name for it is, but it was very spectacular. Someone stood on a rock whirling balls of fire on the end of chains; silhouetted against the evening sky, he looked really spectacular.
The air was astonishingly clear for such a fine day. Looking all the way from the Pennines we could see Liverpool Anglican Cathedral on the horizon, and in the far distance the nearer mountains of North Wales.
We did a final dance, a new, easy one that we got people to join in, then formed up in two lines holding the sticks we use for the Stick Dance up for everybody to pass underneath; everyone danced through, some more than once.
After the walkers left we stayed on till the sun went down behind the hills - nearer 10 pm than quarter to because we were so high up - and then set off for a friendly pub.
A classically good experience.
There were over a hundred walkers. We danced for them, though it was difficult; loose chippings are probably the worst surface in the world to dance on in clogs, and I speak as one who has danced on wet cobbles on a fairly steep slope. Then there were poems and stories and songs, and G sang her song "Mill Girls", which has become a sort of anthem for us. It was prompted by a newspaper article about an old woman who had worked in a mill that was being demolished being given the privilege of pressing the plunger, or turning the switch, or whatever, but turned into a reminiscence of her grandmother's stories and the bunch of girls she went to school and to work with., and we all sang the chorus.
There were some high clouds near the horizon, and in two patches, one on each side, we saw the rainbow effect of the sun shining through the ice crystals - I forget what the proper name for it is, but it was very spectacular. Someone stood on a rock whirling balls of fire on the end of chains; silhouetted against the evening sky, he looked really spectacular.
The air was astonishingly clear for such a fine day. Looking all the way from the Pennines we could see Liverpool Anglican Cathedral on the horizon, and in the far distance the nearer mountains of North Wales.
We did a final dance, a new, easy one that we got people to join in, then formed up in two lines holding the sticks we use for the Stick Dance up for everybody to pass underneath; everyone danced through, some more than once.
After the walkers left we stayed on till the sun went down behind the hills - nearer 10 pm than quarter to because we were so high up - and then set off for a friendly pub.
A classically good experience.