A fine early morning on Saturday December 8 soon gave way to clouds, a steady drizzle and a biting temperature. All this however failed to dampen spirits as Father Christmas and his elves were welcomed on their nautical arrival (courtesy of the harbour master) at Strand Quay. The Christmas Festival was under way.
This year the variety of musical acts that had previously taken place on a stage by the Strand, were transferred to the High Street so that wherever one went, there were a variety of street entertainments ranging from music of various sorts (with, of course, plenty of carols), dancers (the fiery one was good), a unicyclist, jugglers, and elsewhere there was the traditional carousel and also the snow dome.
Hastings Salsa Flash MobThe Rye Dance Center performers, Rye Ukulele Experiment and Hastings Salsa Flash Mob outside the Rye Lodge managed to entertain the crowd before the rain came down.
A star attraction is always the Christmas pudding race where competitive spirit usually exceeds the ability to keep the pudding on the plate and this year was no exception. The main race was won as usual by a team from the Mermaid Inn. In the children’s race the advantage of a blatant false start by some of the competitors was wiped out by a ‘Foinavon‘ moment at the turn which saw arms and legs flying and puddings being scattered. However, encouraged by the crowd everyone picked themselves up and finished the race although not all the plates still had puddings on them.
The tug of war followed and despite skill and determination, the rain soaked slippery service proved too tricky for some and even the colourful attire of one of the teams didn’t help them.
A brief pause after that and time to examine some of the stalls, including a glass or two of mulled wine to fight the cold and then it was time for the parade. Father Christmas had swapped the boat for his more usual sleigh and then it was all over for another year.
An enormous amount of work had been done by the organisers and their volunteer helpers and they are to be congratulated on demonstrating, yet again, that Rye knows how to celebrate the start of the Christmas season. Click on the picture below for a slide show of some of the events of the day.
Image Credits: Tony Ham , John Minter , John MInter .