Our December meeting

Merry making – our December meeting

Tree decorations with Sally. Printmaking with Bridget. Making tiny sketchbooks with me (Lydia). It was a relaxed evening of crafting for our seasonal celebration, Natasha's fabulous mince pies an artwork in themselves (and light as a feather).

But it was more than that – it was full of the friendship and discovery at the heart of our WI – regulars, friends who hadn't been able to make it in a while and two people coming along for the first time to see what we were all about, everyone welcome, all trying things out just for the fun of it, chatting as we went along, putting it all together at the end into a joyous forest of variety.

All the best for the festive season. We've worked together on a great line-up of talks and activities in the new year so look out for the January coming up blogpost.

Our December coffee morning: Friday 29th December, meet between 10.30am and 11am

Grounded, a new café in Bow: 92 Bow Rd, Bow, London E3 3AA, near Bow Church Station.

Our December walk

On the trail of the Huguenots – our December walk in Spitalfields

Following up our November talk on the Huguenots, our December walk was a return to Spitalfields to explore its historic streets. 

We met at Aldgate East, wandered along Brick Lane and turned off for Fournier Street and its handsome houses. As we walked, we chatted about the serial uses of buildings, from church to synagogue to mosque, shop fronts records of communities that have arrived, thrived and moved on. We noted generational changes, young people returned to newly-fashionable neighbourhoods that their ancestors had left. At the Huguenot church, Christ Church Spitalfields, we turned down Wilkes Street and found a plaque to Mark Gertler, an artist whose name some of us knew but no more (find out more here) and in Princelet Street, we shared stories of visits to the recent Christo exhibition and 19 Princelet Street, occasionally open as a museum of immigration and diversity. In Hanbury Street, we paused to look at the tile memorial, then to the former Huguenot hospital and the magnificent Dennis Severs' House. We headed back towards Liverpool Street Station, dipping down Artillery Lane to see Sandy's Row Synagogue, another former Huguenot church, and the ceramic plaques of bakers. Which gave us an appetite: one of us heading off for bagels; another to lunch; me to buy ingredients for an afternoon's baking.

Fancy joining us for a walk? Look out for our 'coming up' blogposts.