I should know better by now, that it's not enough for me to just squiggle down something indecipherable in the diary. As an aside, how is it that my wife can read my handwriting when even I can't make out what it is I've written?

I'd diarised(!), she said, that there was a likely river beach gathering of fully kitted-out Morris Dancers on Saturday 20th, catching a boat to somewhere in aid of something, but as usual I hadn't written down what, or what time. This was around 9.25am, just after the dog-walk when I was about to succumb to a serious need for a heavy caffeine intake.

I picked up the phone to call Ant Veal, whom I knew to be a cudgel-carrying Beltane Border Morris man; they being of the more violent inclination, rather than those who either clump around in clogs or jingle with their bells.

I'd literally just caught him, he said, as he was on his way out 'NOW' through the front door to catch the boat. Decision-time, John: If you dither about you'll be too late – BUT you haven't had your coffee!

My highly desirable cafetiere begged me to sit awhile and partake of her sweet and revitalising company. I cupped her in my hands and blew gently upon her head, but she remained too hot to handle, and I knew that if I was to walk away then it had to be now. I left her, steaming reproachfully on the table.

The Fish Quay was 'alive' with some 150 Morris Dancers of every hue and cry.

A troop of Morris Dancers is called a 'side' and several 'sides', in an array of magnificent oft- feathered finery, had migrated from such far-flung-fields as Exmoor, Plymouth, Wokingham, Bristol, Newton Bushell and Combeinteignhead, all to join their cousins in Teignmouth for a riverboat ford to Topsham, where they proposed to indulge in strange public, ritualistic eurhythmics.

The celebration was in honour of the tenth anniversary of the forming, originally in Stokeinteignhead, of The Beltane Border Morris 'side', and my being surrounded by all these fabulous folk fully-frocked-up was a treat that no photograph here could possibly convey.

It fell under the heading of a probable once-in-a-lifetime visual trip, wonderful to behold and marvellous to be among.

I was generously invited along but, basically, the Siren that is my coffee called to me and, like the sailors of old, I had to turn my head and set sail to that horizon. But I arrived too late...there was no warmth in her welcome; indeed she had gone totally cold on me!

I phoned AJ the following day to ask how it had fared.

'It rained on the boat', she said, 'but cleared up by the time we got to Topsham. We had a great time there, then returned to Teignmouth where most of the visitors had set up camp in the college grounds. We had a really good ceilidh in the school hall in the evening, and today we're having a celebratory lunch at the Teignmouth Museum followed by dancing in the Triangle.'

By the time I'd arrived downtown, they'd moved to the Eastcliff Cafe area, where there was much a-whooping and a-clashing of handkerchiefs and sticks, followed by an impromptu dip into the sea!

All of which is almost enough to make me don the garb, take up the cudgel and dance a future dance with them. If not for the knees...!