The hurdy gurdy man (and woman)

The weather recently has been changeable to say the least. Heavy rain, light rain, thunderstorms, interspersed by occasional glimpses of blue sky. So today when it looked as if there might be occasional glimpses of blue sky, I headed off to the local castle where they were having an exhibition, international no less, of basketry and wicker-work. I'm not frantically interested in wicker-work but I most certainly am interested in blue sky.

There were glimpses of blue sky and the sun did shine but as you can see, there were black clouds around just to make sure nobody became too complacent.

In the midst of wandering around all the exhibits, I suddenly noticed music playing and a troupe of folk dancers appeared.

They are a troupe specialising in the local Berry Region music, song and dance.  The Berry is one of the old French provinces, now split into the Cher, Indre and part of Vienne.  The capital used to be Bourges.

The tradition is to wear clogs and most of the dancers were, to my surprise.  It seems to me to be a very special accomplishment to be able to dance in clogs.  They very sensibly wore thick woolly socks inside the clogs. 

The dances seemed relatively sedate.  This one seemed to consist of several steps and a little jump.  I would have loved to have managed a shot of all dancers in the air, but that requires some co-operation from the dancers.

All the dancing was accompanied by players on the vielle à roue, a medieval instrument.  There is an annual festival of music each year of Maîtres-Sonneurs or master players.

Carvings on a nearby church, showing a vielle à roue being played.  I'm not sure of the significance of that, nor of the donkey playing a harp.

After that they disappeared back into the catle, with me in pursuit, taking photos wherever I could.  To follow.