Hackney Primary School Christmas Song & Maeve's Kitchen

December is upon us and Christmas is just around the corner, so rather than extolling the virtues of home insulation or great ways to minimise your heating bill (which we of course can, should you so wish), we thought we’d tell you about a couple of local happenings that will warm your heart and even your stomach.

The first comes courtesy of Millfields Community School, a primary school in Clapton. They’ve had the rather brilliant idea of releasing a Christmas Song to help them raise funds for a new playground, whilst donating 20% of sales towards UNICEF’s ‘Sing for Syria’ campaign.

The song, written by a local resident, is very aptly named ‘C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S’ and has been recorded by 620 pupils from the school, aged between 5 and 11. Not content with just recording it, the kids also feature in their very own music video made by two parents.

You can download the song for just 99 pence and not only will you be helping the kids to get a new playground, but they might even reach number 1 in the charts.

The temperature, as you can’t have failed to notice has been dropping quite significantly, so what better time to enjoy a delicious warming stew. We can highly recommend popping in to the newly opened Maeve’s Kitchen in Clapton, who in their own words, serve up ‘one pot dishes with a no nonsense approach’.

This rather homely restaurant has been set up in memory of the author Maeve Binchy (who died last year) by local resident and Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Dominic Dromgoole, who was a close family friend of Binchy.

They’re open every day of the week except Monday, and their slow cooked stews are proving popular, so we suggest booking first to make sure you get a table.

So, there are two suggestions to warm up and enjoy your December. Enjoy.