Festival

(includes minor spoilers about Wolf Hall) 

The darkest day is finally here, so lights and candles. Our beeswax, of course. Kinder light than parrafin wax, brighter and much less smoky than tallow. In Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell went to his death thinking about the bees at his beloved Launde Abbey. The monks would have taken honey, of course, but they would also have prized the wax for altar candles. I wondered if all the scenes in castles and great houses featured real beeswax candles - how far do they take authenticity? The nobility at the time would have considered tallow beneath them

Launde Abbey still exists - not all that far from us - though the buildings of Thomas's time were replaced by a manor house soon after his death. Thomas's son Gregory survived his father's downfall, became a baron in his own right, and actually lived at the abbey for ten years. The family occupied the house for the rest of the 16th century

Our grandson hosted a festive lunch at the pub. Mum and dad, two grandfathers, one grandmother, one great-grandmother, an aunt and a dog. He was the perfect host. His other grandfather, a published poet, has written him a lullaby, and read it to him and all of us. No dry eyes - labradoors are so soft-hearted - all just a little more sparkly in the Xmas lights