Last night was the start of the Florida Snow Ball here in Gulfport. The Snow Ball is a yearly weekend contra dance that draws people from all over the country. The dancing started last night at 8:00 p.m. and I saw friends from Minnesota, New York, Connecticut and a few others.
   The dance has the 'Syncopaths' and the 'JEMS' as the two main bands with a caller out of San Diego that I have never heard before, but who seems to be more than competent.  I'm not sure how many dancers there are this weekend, but at it's most crowded last night we had 6 lines of dancers with between 60-75 dancers in each, so 250-300? It was almost too crowded there for awhile, but everyone here is a good dancer and there were no bruised feet or busted noses that I heard of.
    I was happy to note that I could dance every dance in the first hour and a half of the dance, except one I sat out of in order to go too the bathroom. I also stayed for about 2/3's of the second half but finally gave up at 11:00 when the leg started acting fatigued again. It took about an hour for me to come down from my contra high when I got back to the trailer, but I sure did sleep well after that.
   It is sunny outside today, but very windy and cold for the most part. I am still very thankful to be down here though rather than being north of here where they are experiencing blizzard conditions. Brrrr!  I'm holding out until this evening before doing any more dancing. It should be another fun night and I look forward to wearing my feet out once again.


 Contra Dance Week in Ely England - April 7 to 16 - Part XII

Castle Acre Priory Ruins and surrounding area.... One of our daily sightseeing trips took us over to the town that holds the remains of Castle Acre Priory. We didn't actually have much time there as we were continuing on to a final destination of a small town out on the north coast of England. Unless you wanted to stay for the whole day, in which case we would have the bus stop there on the way back to Ely and pick you up. I decided to go on, so only took in the nearby town and the old ruins of the actual Castle Acre Castle. This is part of the fortified gate into the priory grounds where the bus parking lot is.

From a distance... some of the actual priory ruins. I left this for a longer visit next time.

There was a lot of brick used in the gate structure as well as many of the surrounding buildings. What was interesting to me was the use of locally mined rock for use as accents. I am not sure, but think that much of the stone used was a type of volcanic obsidian with lots of quartsite  inclusions, I'm not sure though. I do know that it 'flaked' into very sharp shards however when struck in the right way.

A newer church near the local town. Most likely only a few hundred years old.

A stone gate over a highway leading through town.

There was another site nearby of a large fortified estate. I never figured out if it was actually Castle Acre or some other rich Lords land holdings. This sign was amongst the ruins and help describe what it was you were walking through and seeing.

The remains of what was once a surrounding motte (moat). Some of the main estate ruins are located on the hill to the left.

Referring back to the sign shown earlier this bridge would of been the main entrance to the Castle Keep over the surrounding water filled moat.

More fortified ruins in the distance. Most likely part of the wall that would of surrounded the part of the village inside the walls.

What is left of one of the fortified entrance gates.

A friend and fellow dancer Christy.

Another friend and dancer Susanne.

Looking down on yet another fortified gate with several rooms, for the guards I would think, on either side.

Looking past the remains of one of the stone gates with the existing town in the distance. For some reason I really like this picture.

John and Liz, additional friends and dancers.

A happy couple.

Jane... standing near the top of the hill where the main house would of been.

Ruins of what was most likely the main residence.

The local pub in town 'The Ostrich'. I would of liked to spend an hour or two eating lunch there and having a pint. But it was still mid morning at that time so it was off on the bus to other fun things to see.

Christy,  taking a break in the gate house stairs before getting back on the bus with the rest of us.

brk*