Because The John Harvey Tavern is closed for three weeks for refurbishment, Tina ran another two ZOOM sessions. On Sunday afternoon (16th) I was pleasantly surprised to find five of us. After 20 minutes of chat, Tina offered us a list of 25 Wassail/Winter related songs and we managed to sing through 13 of them. By maintaining a fairly slow pace, waiting a few extra beats between verses and singing solos when possible, the time lag didn’t cause too much trouble! In fact Alan’s Wassail Round was enhanced by ZOOM’s time delay!
On Tuesday evening there were 11 singers (albeit 3 appeared at both sessions) and despite much talking and laughing about gardening, sea swimming and walking on the Downs, we sang 15 songs, but overall there were only 20 different ones: “Come Stranger, Come Friend”, “East Sussex Drinking Song”, “Poor Froze Out Gardeners”, “Here We Come a’Wassailing”, “The Sussex Sugar Wassail”, “The Silver Apple Wassail”, “The Apple Tree Wassail”, “Wassail All Your Apple Trees” (Alan’s Round), “One For The Rook”, “The Fields Lie Silent”, “Ha’nacker Mill”, “Run of The Downs”, “Hard Times of Old England”, “The Magpie”, “Smuggler’s Song”, “Three Maidens”, “The Sussex Wedding Song”, “I Heard a Bird Sing” (Round), “The Parting Song” and “Pleasant and Delightful”.
News from Boris - Plan B restrictions will be reduced and, as of Wednesday 26th January, face masks will no longer be compulsory. And hopefully The John Harvey Tavern will be our venue once more.
