Morris sides around town

After picking Helena up from the Nailsworth market where she held her monthly stall, we drove back to town as I had been told my new glasses were ready. We parked near the Stroud Farmer's Market which still seemed quite busy at 2pm and walked down the High Street to the opticians. 

I'd taken quite a while following my last eye test in selecting the right optician and the particular type of varifocals, eventually deciding to buy Zeiss lenses. I reckoned that when I buy camera lenses I always choose the best I can afford, so reasoned that my own eyes deserved good glass as well, especially when i would be selecting images and working on computers to process them. But they were pricey. I wore them out of the shop and could definitely see better, though I think I need to adjust the positioning on my nose. 

We walked back up the High Street with the intention of going home for some lunch. We noticed several people dressed in different Morris Side costumes and when we reached the top of the hill there was music being played and a different side with dancers outside the last of the shops.

We stopped for a couple of minutes and I took this picture, but that was the end of their set. A second side immediately replaced them but this time with only one accordionist, but with the added accompaniment of their wooden clogs on the cobblestones. You can see a member of this second group at the back right of the picture dressed in the red and white striped trousers.

I'm not a great fan of Morris dancers, although | do admire their commitment and energy. It is just not my sort of thing, even with the rather darker elements of the Mummers. It seems that we are in a particularly active area of folk dancing here in the Cotswolds. We couldn't work out why there should be at least four different sides gathered in town today, but I suspected it might be to mark the Autumn Equinox, which has just passed.