Sweet Chestnut Day

Sweet Chestnut Day 11th November 2006. A small event but some loyal figures turned out. We made some lovely bread and pizza again. The fire was a raging success and so was my impromptu guitar playing. I invited the audience to sing an improvised line or two to a basic blues progression. Well, there was some laughter that evening. Only 12 or 15 of us but it was ample. As usual reps from the Peckham Wildlife Centre turned up and watched us make a sweet chestnut tree planting. All our chestnuts are doing fine despite a hard clay soil (great for slide dancing). Anyone who has visited will know that the site is on a slope. The wet season is a time when the whole place gets quite heavy, and with the slowness of leaf fall this year, rather slippery. Still, a lovely contribution by a Japanese woman and her family treated us to pickled tofu, and she told me afterwards that they felt very happy that day.

In the future I would like to make this day a “Speak your mind day”, to reflect the heaviness of the land and to set one up for the winter solstice celebration. There needs to be a lot more poetry and song.