Low life | 26 February 2011

‘How are you getting on?’ said my landlady. ‘We can see the moor from our place, and every time I’ve looked at it lately it’s been shrouded in fog.’ ‘It has been foggy,’ I admitted. ‘Wet, too. And the pipes froze again.’ ‘Would you like to come wassailing?’ she said. ‘There’s nothing like a wassail to help you through a cold, wet February.’

So last weekend I went a-wassailing with my landlady. She’d said to bring a gun if I had one. If not, something noisy to frighten away the evil spirits. And it’ll probably be muddy, she said, so bring boots. I don’t have a gun. But I did have a pair of boots I wanted to try out. Army boots, used but as good as new; soles as thick as tractor tyres. Polishing up my new boots was how I’d been spending the foggy, wet evenings.

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Ross Clark

Britain is living beyond its means

The wassail was at a smallholding in a village of thatched cob cottages.