The Chepstow Wassail is an event we regularly attend and is a wonderful start to each year.  Read more about the Chepstow Wassail here. However, unforeseen circumstances led to an cancellation of the 2020 Wassail and since then all our social activities have been seriously affected with the arrival of a pandemic.

Cassandra and I discovered that one of our neighbours in the village of St Buryan owns five apple trees situated within her wild and magical garden.

As we were in ‘lockdown’ and not permitted to travel we offered to perform a ceremony for her fabulous trees. Amongst them are rare and ancient species known as ‘Cornish Mother’ and also ‘Blackmore Pippin’.

Wassail in St Buryan 2021 Part 1 – YouTube

The weather was fortunately dry and mild, the sun also appeared providing beautiful blue skies. Our neighbour’s garden is reminiscent of a favourite childhood story, The Secret Garden, as it has an ‘otherwordly’ feel to it.

Wassail in St Buryan 2021 Part 2 – YouTube

I had made some wonderful mulled cider for the occasion, so I poured some into a small flask and created ‘holed’ toast for the trees. I printed out the Wassail ceremony which Cassandra read out before feeding the trees with cider. As there were so many of them we emptied our flask and did not partake of it ourselves until returning home, which was well worth the wait.

We are intrigued to see how the apple trees fare this year and hope our neighbour receives an abundance of apples this autumn. Our neighbour presented us with a basket of ‘goodies’ for Wassailing her trees, symbols of food, drink, fire and cloth to wish us an abundance in all these things.

Here is our Wassail song – the trees had no choice but to awaken with our singing….Wassail to you all!

Wassail Song in St Buryan 2021 – YouTube

It is now Autumn Equinox 2021 and today we re-visited the garden to collect some apples. There is an abundance of apples and the neighbour informed us that he pear tree had never blossomed before but it bloomed this year!