MONDAY morning and one thing I'm sure of is that I'm getting to old for this.

The 'this' I'm talking about is covering the now-nationally renowned Otley Black Sheep Folk Festival.

The seventh to bear that name was the best one yet - and I've still got the aches to prove it.

It started slowly, on Friday night, with a trip to the Red Lion acoustic concert where Brian Krengel was MC-ing.

Having missed Smith and Hegger and Ilkley-based O'DB because I had to go to Headingley to watch Leeds Rhinos beat Hull Sharks first, I got to the Red Lion in time to hear Nick and Duncan Hall's excellent set before moving to the Labour Rooms for Loctup Together.

Chris Lock and Ian Tupling are regulars at the Otley Festival and have a large range of material with which they can have you clapping and shouting or, alternatively, reaching for the hanky.

On Friday, they were competing against a very noisy audience and so they forgot about the haunting ballards and went straight for the jugular with tracks, including Going Nowhere, that didn't give the listeners much choice other than to join in.

They were followed by the very different Adrian Spendlow's Dark Heart.

And, oh boy, how different were they.

Adrian's poetry in itself is very visual and he was joined on stage by the very theatrical Nick Hall (of the Hall Brothers fame) and fiddle player Angeline.

The idea of poetry to music is not a new one - unless you happen to be Adrian Spendlow.

With Nick taking advantage of the opportunity to plug in his electric guitar and distortion pedal, it turned what had been your average folk gig into something from the psychedelic 60s.

Most of it was superb, although there was one moment - when Adrian took a poem literally and started eating catfood - that collectively turned the stomach of nearly everyone in the audience.

For me, this was certainly the most original of all the acts on offer during the festival weekend.

Staggering home after a cup of tea at a friend's house meant bedtime was the relatively early hour of 3am.

Saturday dawned hot and sunny as I wandered down to the craft market in the Civic Centre to buy my annual tie dye print T-shirt from Sandra's Handprints stall.

Food was meat and potato pie, courtesy of Broth Hall 98, which was in the capable hands of Sandra Goakes.

Saturday afternoon was spent in the very capable hands of Mike Soar, who runs the Selby Folk Club.

He introduced the Civic Centre concert which featured Keith Hancock, Chris Sherburn and Denny Bartley, Henwen and Sid Kipper.

Keith Hancock gets better the more times I've seen him and what more can you say about Sid Kipper except that he could possibly be the funniest man on the planet.

I have seen him more than half-a-dozen times and each time he does something new.

This session involved storytelling, music and a wonderful putdown to a female heckler in the audience.

Throughout the day, there was street entertainment which this year included the Leeds branch of the George Formby Society who wowed the crowds outside the Black Bull.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.