Maypole

Yay! A bank holiday over here so I'm able to relax a bit  read and yes write today's blog entry although the idea came to me a few days ago so i just jotted down the initial thoughts cos my short term memory isn't good at all.
Seeing it's May Bank Holiday I was starting to think about what kinds of things I used to around this time of year and one of the things that stuck in my mind was school maypole dancing

While that  picture wasn't taken it my school, it was taken at a school in Gloucestershire, England actually, it is very very similar to how we did it.
Those who had two left feet were selected as 'ballast' to hold the maypole down, the uniform was similar except the boys nearly always had shorts on and in alternate boy/girl pairings we'd dance weaving in and out creating the plait you can see from the top of the pole downward.
One difference is we have what in England you'd call 'Pumps'  a cotton with rubber soled gym type shoe that you had to clean and polish before the public performance with matching three-quarter length socks.
I use to take me ages to polish and whiten mine!
I was pretty good at it actually having a good ear for the tunes we danced to so we kept in time with the music as well as each other. Well it kinda helps, eh?