May Day Island Style

Yarmouth on May Day was the place to be for all your morris dancing, May pole dancing, country fair amusement style activities.  Having lazed away most of the morning we missed the parade, which was, in fairness at dawn, but caught some of the later dancing activities.

Young and old, the funny-dressed and Sunday best alike got involved and danced away in these set pieces to the tunes coming from the band, who were doing a sterling job having been at it since sun up.

The leprechaun-esque outfits were...well, I was amused but I appreciate it's not very nice to mock.  Being a resident of good ol'London Taaaan signs of the provinces and their ways always warm my heart and make me glad not everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet style-wise.

I learnt to dance round the May pole as a seven year old...some sort of country dancing festival thing my school decided to run.  I think my brother may have been forced to learn too actually, now I think about it.  Anyhow it meant I was therefore an 'expert' and was able to explain it to a bemused Sam.  Luckily him, eh?

The amusements at the fair included a 'how strong are you?'boink the disc with the hammer thing - what are these called?  Decked out in bunting though, excellent, very good.

And these see-saw boat things (again, names??).  My brother and I used to go on these as kids and he was a monster and used to keep pulling the rope overly hard in order to make the whole thing shoot up abruptly, I was terrified I was going to fall out and was forced to seek redress on the sly once my parents had rescued me.  (NB. my brother may have been harmed in the making of this redress.)

I want this ice cream van!  How awesome is this!?  Unfortunately the weather wasn't really playing ball so we went into a cafe and had a nice cuppa and a cake instead in the warm.

In the middle of the fair this man was sculpting a seat for a local primary school out of this tree stump.  It was pretty impressive to watch as he used a range of chain saws to make it take shape.

Here's one he made earlier, not a seat, obviously, but a cool sculpture using the same method.  I always think this looks as if it's actually an Ent, as in Lord of the Rings talking tree people.  Except smaller.  But clearly about to come to life and save Isengard whilst carrying a hobbit on each shoulder.

Then, as if things couldn't get any more vintage, we got caught in an almighty traffic jam, something of an achievement on a rainy bank holiday on the rural Isle of Wight.  What could be holding us up we wondered?  And then we overtook...

...an actual coal powered engine.  On the small wind-y roads of the Island.  It even stopped at traffic lights.  Perfecto.