Her Indoors and I were away at the weekend.  Friends invited us to a “vintage fair that was attached to something called the Wilderness Festival, which comprised a dense encampment of pup tents in the park of some stately home or other near Woodstock in Oxfordshire.

The main event was infested by airheads of every stripe, all very good-tempered.  Various booths flogging handicrafts and vintage clobber.  Also tobacco, since it seems to be a New Age precept that smoking roll-ups is good for the Spriit, or the chakras, or summat.

Our interest was a dance venue in a large marquee, where a programme of swing and other popular music of the thirties and forties had been arranged.  This has a following among the elderly deranged, who wear the gear and know how to dance the Lindy Hop and the Shag (sic).  We go to enough of these gigs to recognise some of the old lags, but sometimes we are surprised as we were on this occasion by two very beautiful young women in broad picture hats, like film stars who get done-in in an Agatha Christie movie.

Our particular desire was to listen – and hopefully dance – to a much vaunted Czech band, an enormous ensemble led by a fellow who looks like the actor Leslie Phillips.  They duly appeared but the press of the crowd and the general racket meant we’d had enough after an hour.  Still, it’s encouraging how many young people like this hot music when they get a chance to hear it in the right atmosphere.

Next week: Edinburgh !

14.8.12