Well, that’s another couple of months consigned to history.
January always feels like it is 350 days long and the fact it was almost relentlessly grey, and or wet, didn’t help. I’m not going to lie January and pretty much February as well were a struggle this year.
There were however two bright spots on the horizon in January. On the 17th we went to Soo’s house to join the wassail taking place in the allotments and orchard in her village.
I’ve never been to one before, but having had a pretty much rural upbringing, I had a rough idea of what to expect.
Traditionally a wassail was when revellers went from house to house on twelfth night, drinking toasts to good health and prosperity for the year ahead. Or if you were somewhere more rural, and particularly somewhere with orchards, the aim was to appease the spirits so you would hopefully get a good harvest that year. In simple terms an orchard wassail involves the lighting of a huge fire, drinking lots of cider, eating apple-based cakes, singing songs and making a lot of noise! What’s not to like?
The fire is lit to signify the return of the sun after winter, over this you cook some toast which is then hung in the trees, they are also anointing with cider and finally after singing some wassail songs you process around the orchard banging pots and pans to awaken the trees and scare off any malign spirits. I was definitely up for the experience, but I cannot lie I was rather surprised when Himself said he would come too ( mind you, he is a big folk horror fan so perhaps he was expecting something more sinister.)
Suitably warmly wrapped up, we met Soo and two other friends Gina and Chris at her house arriving at the orchard just as the sun was starting to set, and added our cider contributions to the already heaving tables. Despite the miserable weather each side, the 17th was actually a nice day weatherwise, so we got to enjoy a rather lovely sunset standing around the already roaring fire. There were two huge cauldrons bubbling away, one of mulled cider and one of non-alcoholic mulled apple juice.
I stuck with a bottle of Cornish rattler until it got a bit colder, the hot mulled cider was suddenly most welcome then.
Once we had processed around the trees behind some morris dancers whilst making lots of noise and watched a jaw dropping display of fire spinning from the local tree surgeon whilst eating delicious pieces of the various home-made apple cakes, we decided to head somewhere a bit warmer and more importantly with a toilet!
Soo’s other half Gav had been working all day and had planned to meet us back at the house but as we were a bit earlier than anticipated we messaged to say we would be in the pub and he met us there.
Gina, Himself and I had been invited to stay the night, so we headed back to the house with Gav, who was on jacket potato duty, whilst Soo and Gina walked Chris to the bus stop to catch her bus home. Soo had left a casserole in the slow cooker all day which we devoured with the said jacket potatoes, cavolo nero. Replete with good food, the wine and conversation flowed, and we finally got to bed at 2.30am. Here’s to a happy harvest for 2026.
The following weekend I was off to London to meet with Charlotte and Alex. I had my train ticket prebooked so moseyed down to breakfast with what I thought was plenty of time. One mouthful into my stewed banana & blueberries and Greek yoghurt I found a message from Charlotte on my phone to say our train had been cancelled! She had managed to catch an earlier one, they are a lot less frequent for her and was already pretty much in London. I did a quick search and found I had an alternative train I could catch in 20 minutes, so I shovelled down the rest of my breakfast and hot footed it down to the station.
Charlotte was waiting patiently at Paddington when I finally arrived having been delayed even though it was an earlier train (go figure.)
We jumped on a tube towards Tate Modern where we were meeting Alex for the Lee Miller exhibition.
I had known about, and been fascinated by, Lee Miller the model, muse of Man Ray and avant-garde photographer for many years now.
It was fortuitously replayed the week before we were due to see the exhibition, so I watched it again to refresh, and it’s still available on the IPlayer here if you want to catch it.
Her incredible war photography I was reminded of more recently by the 2024 film Lee starring Kate Winslet, something else I would recommend seeing if you haven’t already.
As one of very few women war correspondents, she was the first person to photograph the full horror of Nazi concentration camps. Returning to the UK post war and without the kind of mental health support available now, it’s hardly surprising she never spoke about it again and spent her life struggling with addiction. The exhibition a separate side room for this element of her work with a strict no photo policy and clear warnings for those who would rather pass by without going in. It was truly sobering.
I must admit I particularly loved the case that had her US Army uniform and Rolleiflex camera, for me there is something I can connect with so much more when you see things that actually people wore or used.
It was an amazing exhibition starting with stunning early pictures of Lee as a model before focusing on her work as a photographer. It was fascinating to see her experiments with technique and her style develop. Her frustration at initially being stuck taking magazine friendly pictures of hats for Vogue whilst war raged on was almost tangible. I’m so glad I got to see the exhibition before it shut.
I always take my camera to exhibitions with me and if allowed, take pictures as a kind of aide memoire to look back on and remind myself of what I saw. I couldn’t take nearly as many as I would have liked because the exhibition was so busy. I hope it had been like that all the way through it’s run, we were seeing it literally a week or so from the end.
We decamped to the café to have a drink and just sit for a little to absorb what we had seen.
We had no plans as such for the rest of the day, but Alex fancied a walk through St James’s Park to see the pelicans, and as it was one of the few gorgeous sunny days of January, we headed there next.
I was inspired to take some abstract pictures of my own on the way!
There have been pelicans in the park since 1664 when some were gifted by the then Russian Ambassador to King Charles II and they are now looked after by The Royal Palaces. There is so much birdlife to be seen in the park, exotic and otherwise, and sadly so many people completely disregarding all the signs warning about the avian ‘flu and asking people to please not feed or get too close.
Pictures taken we decided it was time for lunch so ambled through the park and walked the nearby streets not really finding anything until in hunger and desperation we ended up in a Pizza Express which was fine but not anything to write home about. Of course sod’s law, after we had eaten and carried on with our exploring about 5 minutes up the road was a lovely family run Italian restaurant!
We came upon Westminster Cathedral on our left (not to be confused with Westminster Abbey) so decided to take a look around inside as we were there.
Alex and I both wanted to find a Buns From Home before we left London, so we ended up catching the tube to Baker Street because Charlotte knew one there. It also meant I go to walk past Montagu Mansions the block of flats that featured in the fascinating most recent House Through Time series about two blocks of flats one in London and one in Berlin during WW2.
We found our bakery, both purchased our cakes to take home, then found a great pub for a cheeky glass of wine as there was time in hand before we had to head for our respective stations.
And that was January
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