Apple Day!

Today was Apple Day! I didn't know about it until I went to Borough Market and suddenly there was a parade of people in costumes, and a band! I'm much too excited to write anything substantial, so this is mostly just visual aids to show you what a good time it was. Look!


IMG 1592 from Molly Kernan on Vimeo.

Apple Day is a fantastic day of harvesty appley celebration that America needs to implement immediately. The merry troupe in the video above put on a play for us which they called "The True Tales of Robin Hood". (Spoiler alert: Robin is a lady and Marian is a man.) There was audience participation, bawdy jokes that hopefully went way over the heads of the kids in the first row, and much smashing of crockery (during which the kids in the first row were duly ushered out of the way and ordered to cover their eyes in case of flying shards). 

Also, there was this guy:

And this majestic stag with his girlfriend:

There was also Morris dancing, which is a traditional type of English folk dance. It's kind of hard to explain, so here's a short clip of some Morris dudes working it with sticks:

IMG 1602 from Molly Kernan on Vimeo.

Tradition! Okay, so it may not look terribly exciting, but it dates back to at least the 15th century so give them a break. Also, they have bells tied around their shins, so that's pretty cool. And did you see the guy playing the tiny accordion? It's so tiny! 

In between the acts of the Robin Hood play, some other dancers came on stage and did a different Morris thing. They were of a rather advanced age, so their dance just kind of looked like four guys wrestling with each other while standing up: 

Their dance was nice, but I'm not sure if you managed to catch the real superstar in that picture, so let me zoom in a little. Check out the lady onstage who is absolutely killing it playing the pipe and the drum AT THE SAME TIME:

Piping with the left hand, drumming with the right. Talk about a one-(wo)man-band. I have a hard enough time playing two-handed piano, and I took lessons for ten years. (You were throwing your money away on that one, Mom.)

In conclusion, I also had a delicious pork sandwich with cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and some sort of apple cider chutney on top, and an apple turnover. Apple Day is pretty much the best day. Get on it, America.