First photo-opp of the season a meeting with a reporter and photographer from, er, a well-known national newspaper if I say who it is itll spoil the surprise when it comes out. It does have a capital T in the title – which narrows the choices down a bit (discounting ‘The’).
Weve arranged to meet in an orchard near Newnham Bridge, just to the east of Tenbury Wells its a classic old apple orchard, still very productive, though well past its prime.
Its in new ownership, but the new people are too busy rebuilding the house to do much to the orchard yet. Theyre having to spend Christmas in a caravan in the garden [which sounds like a hardship but having done the same thing, by choice, for the last 2 years, I can recommend it a bit chilly at times, but cosy and down-to-earth. And no TV in ours either. But I digress
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The idea was to do a bit of harvesting for the camera, and chat about the Tenbury Mistletoe initiatives and challenges the Mistletoe Auctions, The Mistletoe Festival and the TEME online mistletoe shop. In attendance me, Reg and Alec
A beautiful day for pictures, and the photographer takes lots of pics around the orchard, including, inevitably, me up a ladder gazing lovingly into some mistletoe. It will be interesting to see what get used.
But I must tell you the news we discussed, starting with the Auctions. These will be in the old auction yard (more on this below) on Tuesday 28th November, Tuesday 5th December and Tuesday 12th December. The auctioneer will be Nick Champion.
The auction venue is now owned by William Chase, best-known for Tyrrells Potato Chips. Though there has been pressure from supermarkets to develop the site, Chase is keen on it remaining a community market area, and is doing the site up already, repairing the buildings etc, with a view to establishing a large regular Farmers Market there soon. He is altering the layout so that the Mistletoe and Holly Auctions this season will be at the far end of the site, which should be an improvement on the crowded lorry/mistletoe/crowds of people mix we used to have, though it will alter the atmosphere – we’ll have to wait and see what it’ll be like.
The Tenbury Mistletoe Festival will be running from Friday 24th November through to Tuesday 5th December full details are at the Festival website. Highlights include a 1930s Dinner Dance, the Mistletoe Ball, the Mistletoe Procession and Mistletoe Queen, a folk concert with Julie Felix and a druidic blessing from the Mistletoe Foundation. This years Festival is being sponsored by Tyrrells (see above) and we hope this will become a long-term partnership.
The TEME online mistletoe sales are now in their second year with a range of mistletoe packages available to buy plus mistletoe mugs, tea and cards and prints (the latter via Cafepress)