Winter brings us to the singers

[sovay]

There are honest-to-God carolers on my street. I thought they were a passing car or a radio, but they are five or six people with sheet music in hand standing on the steps at a slight diagonal across the street, appropriately next to a large conifer, singing "Ding Dong Merrily on High." I guess it is that season.

[edit] And now they are gone. I heard nothing after the last round of hosanna in excelsis and when I looked out, I couldn't see them anymore. They do not appear to have moved on to any other house; I can't hear them anywhere else on the street. If they went indoors, they sure didn't turn on the lights.

I guess it's ghost story for Christmas season, too.

Comments

[davidgillon]

I avoided Rochester this weekend, but they'll have been out in force at the Christmas Dickens festival.

Drove past at about 6pm and there were somewhere between 15 and 20 coaches just arriving to pick up the tourists.

[cmcmck]

Well I never!

I live in Shropshire these days, but Rochester is my home town so I know that well and I was also an avoider.

Always stuck to sweeps as I dance and play.

[davidgillon]

They've now added a Christmas Market, so basically I'm avoiding Rochester for the rest of the year!

And Sweeps is definitely the superior festival. If for no other reason than the beer festival in the Gordon ;)

[sovay]

I avoided Rochester this weekend, but they'll have been out in force at the Christmas Dickens festival.

I did not know there was a Christmas Dickens Festival, although now that I think about it for more than a picosecond I'm not surprised. What do they do that's not A Christmas Carol?

[cmcmck]

Rochester was Dickens' home town and all the buildings he ever wrote about that weren't in London are in Rochester. Even out of festival time, it's very hard to get away from the man.

[davidgillon]

Absolutely. The house where he grew up is 200m away, I used to park next to Mrs Havisham's, his writing chalet is in the grounds of the Adult Ed Centre, and a friend's daughter just moved into the house where his mistress lived.

[davidgillon]

Mostly just parade around in Dickensian costume. There'll be guided tours and talks and the like, but it's mostly an excuse to line the streets with stalls selling hot food and mulled wine and the like. More recently they've added a German style Christmas market in the grounds of the Castle which runs every weekend from late November, so this weekend now has dual attractions - hence 20 busloads of tourists.

[sovay]

More recently they've added a German style Christmas market in the grounds of the Castle which runs every weekend from late November, so this weekend now has dual attractions - hence 20 busloads of tourists.

Yikes.

[davidgillon]

And possibly a special train from London - they're multiple times an hour anyway, but they run a special for the main Dickens Festival in Spring, not sure about Christmas Dickens.