It was billed as the Christmas bash where every offering had to be Christmas related. Now I don’t know about you, but at such a time stuffed full of traditional, and stuffing filled with Thyme, I don’t mind the annual trotting out of standards. Seems that everyone is trying to be edgy and ironic which doesn’t exactly help the sing-along aspect of a lot of traditional songs. Of course when I say traditional songs that includes Santa Claus is Coming to Town and it’s ilk.

So when it was announced at one point that the performer wasn’t going to do the obvious choice of songs, I have to confess to feeling a tad deflated. It’s not like I was expecting All Around my Hat, but I was hoping to exercise the vocal chords to some degree. As it turned out the song that followed was the Fairytale of New York, though the Christy Moore one, not the Pogues version. And a decent fist was made of it as well, though to my mind it’s become something of a Christmas standard in it’s own right.

Enough of the high-falutin music discourse, the evening was about enjoying yourself and aided by the Ringwood Brewery, we did just that. An added bonus was that having walked into the bar at the start we met our friend Mr Jim Anderson, accordion player extraordinaire, who not only got the first round in, but was shortly afterwards up on stage exercising his superb accordion stylings. In theory it was a Christmas medley, but so many tunes were included so quickly perhaps a Christmas mash-up would be a better description. For me one of the highlights of the evening.

Now if I were any kind of a diligent reviewer I would have taken note of all the performers and therefore been able to steer you on their relative merits. However the convivial atmosphere and the assistance of Messrs Ringwood meant that I can’t do that. Oh well. However I did particularly like the band with the young bloke playing the ukulele banjo. I like ukuleles, I like Christmas. What’s not to like.

What I can do is recommend the Lymington Folk Club as a good way to spend an evening. If the Christmas bash is representative of their regulkar meetings, then don’t wait until the evening is due to start to turn up. The seats will all be gone and you’ll have to stand at the back. There are worse things to have to do but I’m just saying.

Finally I can only wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It’s not Folk, but it’s my Christmas song for this year. A wonderful Reggae track from the Maytals. Apologies for the advert at the start.

So snow came and went and came and has now comprehensively gone again. With the New Year shortly upon us we are in enjoying a balmy six degrees Celsius. Virtually tropical. However whilst it was around, the denizens of Lymington made the very best of it at Buckland Rings. Fortunately without the need of an ambulance and fire engine to allow access to the injured as happened at the beginning of the year.  

Sledging At Buckland Rings

You probably can’t see too clearly the two figures on the left carrying a large piece of plastic, provenance unknown. Unfortunately I don’t have any shots of them coming down again with a significant number of their friends on-board, but you’ll have to take my word that it was quite a sight to see and more importantly not be in the way of!  There was a most enjoyable carnival atmosphere about the place with people just enjoying themselves and no-one being objectionable. Not so sure the various Estate Agents represented by their for sale signs being pressed into service would necessarily concur, since that appeared to be the sled of choice for many! En route I came across this candidate for not entirely useful notice of the year award….  

Keep Off The Grass

On an entirely different note, an appropriate phrase if ever there was, I get contacted from time to time to mention things going on in Lymington. In this case it was to do with a folk and acoustic music club meeting at the ‘Thomas Tripp’ every first and third Wednesday of the month. I’ll be honest, I was told about this quite some time ago, so I hope it’s still relevant! Anyway, entry is free and open to anyone who plays acoustically or sings or likes listening to real music. As it happens that description fits me quite well, so maybe I’ll just wander along one evening and see what it’s like. All in the spirit of public information of course. In the nick of time I was contacted by what turns out to be the Lymington Folk Club and apparently all sorts of info is available from their website at Lymington Folk Club.  

And speaking of public information, I feel obligated to mention the most excellent customer service recently rendered by Tribal Gatherings, oriental rug specialists in Lyndhurst. If you’re in the market for a bit of oriental ruggery, it’s a pretty good place to start! And no, they aren’t paying me to say this, they were just very helpful. In case of interest, their website is HERE.  

Hope your Christmas was good and your New Year will be considerably better than we are being told to expect!

This year, and in the face of political correctness requiring the purging of all religious reference from this season of celebration, there is a nativity scene. And underneath the nativity scene on the side of the boat, is a car number plate with PEACE2U on it. I couldn’t put it better myself. Happy Christmas.

This year however, under the auspices of the newly formed Lymington & Pennington Christmas Lights Committee, we have indeed seen the light(s) and had a modicum of civic pride restored. Lym is always going to be at a disadvantage due to the fact we have a wide enough High Street to hold a substantial market in every Saturday. Handy for shopping, but a bit on the wide side for stringing lots of lights across without attracting significant cost and apparently also some risk. Now we have lights and decorated Christmas trees from the top of St Thomas’s Street all the way down with extra lights in the trees outside the Post Office. In truth the effect is best at the narrow St Thomas’s Street end, but very pretty none the less.

In contrast Lyndhurst High Street is one lane and narrow and whilst that doesn’t allow much in the way of a street market, it does make it look almost magical when it gets dark and the lights come on. In fact we normally go for a stroll down the high street sometime before Christmas just for the simple pleasure of the experience. The high life it may not be, but utterly charming it most certainly is. I recall being told once that there are two ways of missing something, either it goes by too fast or you go by too fast. This is merely our attempt to slow down a tad during a season which seems to go full-pelt and handbrake turns into Christmas Day. It’s doing things like this that maintain what passes for our sanity at this time of the year.