Wassailing at TWIGS

Wassailing, the ancient tradition of waking up fruit trees by bashing metal pans, and shouting. The celebrations vary from region to region, but generally involve a wassail King and Queen leading the assembled group of revellers, comprising the farmers, farm workers and general villagers, in a noisy procession from one orchard to the next. In each orchard the wassailers gather round the biggest and best tree, and as a gift to the tree spirits, the Queen places a piece of wassail soaked toast into its branches, accompanied by songs.
I love wassailing, like Potato day, it's a reminder that spring and the new growing season is just round the corner. Because both events are on the same day, and I was slowed down by a puncture, I missed most of the wassail, but did get some sticky chocolate brownie and coffee, and sat with Urban Sketchers .

 As I walked round, it was lovely to see the apple tree with its many bunches of mistletoe also covered in bits of toast. I was given some mistletoe before Christmas despite telling the donor that I was past snogging, I think I'll see if I can transfer some of the berries to my apple trees.

 Some of the Urban Sketchers were in the sunken house, although you can't see them from the photo.

 The gardens were looking fabulous, the structure of the garden really stands out at this time of year, and an application of manure makes everything look well tended.

 Above there are some willow balls on sticks, they look lovely in the garden, but are hardly visible here.

 I'm not really sure what the structure above is, but it looked very festive.

The plant sales area given the time of year, was understandably quite small.
 I picked up a calendar which listed events at TWIGS which lets you know when the NGS open days take place. If you click on the link, there's a video of the wassail.

Isn't it a useful list of things happening at TWIGS this year, and their opening times?
I did find a lovely photo of the wassail king and queen on Facebook: