The 26th day of Ocober 2013 saw the AMM’s fifth attendance at the Fleurieu Folk Festival (FFF) at Willunga. Now a regular favourite of ours and blessed with warmer weather, it has been running since 2003. It offers us not just another day of dance but an opportunity to catch up with old AMM members and our more remote associates in the folk sphere.

We now dance stage sets on a temporary timber dance floor in an open marquee, a definite improvement on the exposed square of undulating carpet supporting our initial efforts in 2009. For variety we repair to an alternative spot at the festival entrance and on occasional forays into the festival fringes, often rousing those recovering in their tents from the previous night’s excesses. As observed in most sides, time is also spent critiquing, in our turn, the abilities of the other sides of the day.

While individual sampling of the various acts can be squeezed into the breaks, much of our time not dancing is spent in the congenial environs of the drinks tent. A congeniality which surreptitiously expands around 2PM into the tent’s English music session for the weekend. This is a take-no-prisoners broadside of assorted tones from the English Music enthusiasts as they fire up a varied collection of strings, melodeons, concertinas and musical ability.

For a relaxing soak in an atmosphere of all things folk in South Australia yet still with the ready accessibility characteristic of our state this festival is right up there and, no, they’re not paying us to say this …….. but we’re open to offers ….