Wassail

Posted on 2014/01/10 23:06:46 (January 2014).

[Sunday 5th January 2014]
After Twelfth Night last year I'd rather got into the idea of wassail - my original interest was mostly cider based, but it also seemed like a good way to round off the Christmas period, or something like that.

I considered going back to Bankside again this year, but had heard there was an alternative wassail event in East Greenwich "Pleasaunce" of all places, so I thought for the sake of variety I'd try that instead. Chie wanted to do a bit of shopping so I thought I'd give her a break, and just me and Erika headed out to Greenwich.

It was a very low key affair, I got the impression most of the attendees were people living locally, but it was no less pleasant for that. There was morris dancing (surprisingly I actually recognised a couple of the songs from my days as an "apprentice" morris dancer with Dad) which Erika seemed interested in, or perhaps a little bemused by. There was a green man of sorts, and mulled cider, and some folk singing etc after the morris dancing. While we were there I took Erika for a bit of a play in the park's playground. We didn't stay very long overall but it made for a different sort of afternoon out, and Erika is at an age where she doesn't really seem to mind too much what we do.

It had been a bit fiddly getting there - two tubes and then a train from London Bridge - and so I tried to be clever on the way back, and simplify things by walking to North Greenwich tube station to catch the Jubilee line. This turned out to be quite a long walk, which felt longer still because we were in unfamiliar - and at times slightly bleak looking - territory. Erika remained mostly quite stoic, although now and again I thought I could detect an expression which seemed to be saying "where the hell are we Dad?". I felt quite relieved when we did finally make it to North Greenwich.

Erika became quite hungry on the tube, and I'd already given her all the food I'd brought with us for her lunch, so on the way back I made an emergency stop at Westminster tube station, where I recall there being a Tesco Express - probably the smallest I've ever been - where luckily I was able to find some baby compatible snacks.

From there we walked to the Tate Britain, where we met up with Chie again. We had a quick wander round the Art Under Attack exhibit, although I was starting to feel a bit tired by this point and wasn't really in the mood for it. I left the girls to it after that - they spent a bit more time at the Tate while I headed back home to make dinner.

Post a comment