Morning everyone or good evening or good afternoon. It depends when you're listening to it, I suppose. Welcome to the For the Many podcast. Wasail!

What on earth is all that about?

You have to remind us, because I know we did this last year, but you've been wassailing again.

I thought was sailing was something to do with Christmas.

No, we've been going so long that we're now able to sort of have the same thing coming around to you after.

Rehash our anecdotes.

A wassale is a ceremony around about this time of year.

Ceremony is probably too strong a word.

Thing.

Celebration to promote the growth of the apple trees, in particular those that will later be creating cider.

So it's a bit of a pagan thing.

Oh yeah.

There's people are dressed up with mistletoe all hanging off them.

There's lots of shouting.

You walk down the lanes, all with lots of flaming torches.

Nobody was burnt in a wicker basket, which was slightly disappointing.

But there was a shotgun fired at one point.

Toast was put onto the apple tree, I think soaked in cider. I wasn't quite concentrating at that

moment. And then mulled cider and hot pork rolls are eaten. What's not to like about that?

And did you have mistletoe hanging off your head? I didn't. I'm a bit of a sort of bar humbug when it comes

to anything to do with fancy dress. So I had no lights on me. I had no mistletoe hanging off me. And I didn't

take a saucepan to bang either. I was just a sort of slightly grumpy spectator. Is this something

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