…country and western!

The geeee-tar belongs to DM. It doesn’t get out as much as it should. He goes through phases of playing a lot then hardly playing at all. He is in a not playing at all phase at the moment. The exception is when we’ve had quite a lot of wine and he feels the need to play along to a CD or VH1 or whatever.

The hat also belongs to DM but it was made by me. He calls it his wassailing hat for some reason. He does wear it to wassail but I’m not sure how that particular tradition started. This year, the wassail didn’t happen so I expect we won’t get any apples at all. I’m anticipating the trees hurling them at us when they are tiny, sour marble-sized things.

Of course wassailing doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not as if you suddenly find yourself dancing round the tree singing wassailing songs in the middle of the night with mulled cider and cider soaked toast without any idea of how it started. You have to plan it and do it as though you mean it. It’s also important for it to be your most important tree that you wassail because if you wassail a lesser tree that also gets you into the cacky with the apple fairies. The reason why we didn’t do it this year is because our lodger’s bedroom window looks out over our “mother” tree and to be frank, it's be embarrassing .even if we didn't do it naked. (Joke.) She (the mother tree that is, not the lodger) is a massive beast and her apples are small and sour but they make fantastic chilli jam and I’m waiting for a good year to try to make my own cider.

So that won’t be this year because we’ve pissed her off (mother apple that is, not lodger although I suspect we’ve also pissed her off too) by not wassailing her. You may think this is all bonkers and perhaps it is but it’s no more bonkers that praising the lord.

Oh and just so all of DMs friends are aware, he hasn’t:

1. Died
2. Left me
3. Given up his PAD
4. Broken both his arms
5. Broken both his legs….
None of the above, he’s just completely madly busy! Normal service will be resumed soon.