The long reel comes about half way through Newton. The two sides in the set come together to form one long line, partners facing each other so half are facing up the set and the other half down. Then we pass by right and left shoulders, turning at the end of the set until we're all back in place again (in should take 32 skips). Basically everyone steps forward and sideways to become shoulder to shoulder, then in line, then shoulder to shoulder with the next person. Done well long reel looks really good, but you have to watch the back of the person in front: hence the impossibility of doing it with a ghost.

So we've been practising Newton without long reel and were eager to give it another try. We've also been working on some changes to make it more interesting, and less exhausting. Instead of a chorus of 16 skips on the spot (that's 16 step hops) we now do a striding 'foot-up'* chorus, but with much more flamboyant arm movements. All the figures remain the same but in a slightly quicker skip than previously. Apart from long reel the ghost picked them up really well.

As did Mrs Quilt, who has returned after a month or so visiting offspring in the antipodes. We were eager to show her how we had adapted Newton-le-Willows in her absence.

Having not done the long reel in a while some of us rushed it a little. There is a tendency for the set to stretch so that bigger and bigger steps need to be taken and it gets harder to get back to place for the chorus, so we also concentrated on keeping the set tight. These two forces combined so that the gaps to slide into got smaller and smaller until we weren't so much moving past as squeezing between each other.

About half way through Mrs Quilt cried out despairingly "I know we're supposed to keep the set tight, but some of us have bosoms!"

*foot-up - Originally the dance was done in processions and would have moved forward in the foot-up (or chorus). So now we go forward four steps, then back, twice.