Liz & Simon who organise Knockengorroch at their wonderful remote home in the Galloway Hills were worried that the current recession would take its toll and that not enough people would turn up at this year’s World Ceilidh to cover their financial outlay. Add to this the fact that a rather over-zealous Health & Safety official refused to pass the fantastic new permanent Bo-Airigh stage until after the first band were due to be treading its’ boards and there were a few furrowed brows to be seen among those in charge.

But once again, all turned out fantastically well in the end. The punters came in their droves and the campsites and car parks were rammed by the Saturday morning to the extent that we wished that we had perhaps been a little more persistent in our requests to be allowed to remain in the “overflow” field a little way up the track, which we enjoyed so much last May.

Apart from the Bo-Airigh stage everything was much as we know and love the place to be. There were a few less trees around the valley but such is the price of sustainable forestry. It has to be harvested every once in a while. There were several more stalls selling both food and merchandise than I remember being the case in the past and the bar served the usual extensive range of local ales at reasonable prices.

Weatherwise we were fairly lucky again with the only significant rainfall coming during the early hours of Saturday and we had plenty of sunshine in between to dry the ground out enough to sit on.

On the main stage Orchestra Del Sol drew a large crowd on the Friday evening as did The Orb on Saturday, while Roni Size packed out the Sheiling Tent into the early hours. No photos of his set I’m afraid but otherwise this is how the weekend went for us.