Richard’s flag at Bosworth, Leicestershire. Our visit in 2008 first alerted me to the Ricardian cause. So pleased that he’s been found.
May Day
It turns out that dancing around the maypole is a Merrie England tradition, i.e. a Victorian invention of something from an old English idyll. Just as well we didn’t do it. You can understand why the beginning of May brings out such levity, though. Summer is approaching, winter dead . . . although given the deluge we have recently endured, you wouldn’t know it.
The first Monday in May is a “bank holiday” in the UK, a day off. Its proximity to International Labour Day has had conservatives bleating from time to time, but that’s all rather silly. A long weekend was just what we needed and we spent the Monday enjoying, despite the rain, a fete organised by the school. Malvern has also joined Derbyshire in dressing its wells at this time of year. It’s a lovely tradition and we know of one undressed well that we are going to adopt next year. Pictures courtesy of Rebecca:
Clock Tower
Inside
Great Malvern
Worcestershire Beacon
Other English Year observances since I last posted: Easter (I was in Utah), the Queen’s birthday, and St. George’s Day (the children participated in a Scout parade to Great Malvern Priory).
English Year Update
We have marked the English Year several times since my last post.
- St. Valentine’s Day: one of the few traditional holidays whose popularity has increased in recent years, probably due to its secular and commercial appeal. Thanks, B, for the Love Hearts!
- Shrove Tuesday aka Pancake Day: a day of gluttony before Lent. Pancakes, of course, and also my last helping of meat for school lunch until Easter. (At my school, lunch can be a lavish affair.) I committed myself to flexitarianism a while back — I do not think that eating meat is mala in se, but I do think the factory production of meat is immoral and would be curbed if we would dial down our appetites for cheap meat (“eat meat sparingly” as one Mormon text puts it). Lent is a good re-commitment.
- Ash Wednesday: marked by a Lenten service in Worcester Cathedral. We are giving up the following for Lent: evening internet (me), evening iPod (Becky), fizzy drinks (W), chocolate (M), and non-fiction books for bedtime reading (J).
- Leap Year Day: this is also the Feast of St. Oswald, the Saxon Bishop of Worcester. I listened to sung Eucharist.
- Despite my part Welsh ancestry, I simply cannot bring myself to celebrate St. David. Don’t expect anything for St. Patrick or St. Andrew either. As for me and my house, we will honour St. George!
Candlemas
Not being a particularly Marianist family it wouldn’t normally have occurred to us to mark Candlemas, but this being our English Year, the calendar demands it.
I like that Candlemas is one of those holidays heavy with the patina of time and tradition. Ostensibly it marks the purification of Mary, 40 days after the birth of Jesus, and his own presentation in the temple. From ideas of consecration and purification came the tradition of the blessing of candles in church. Then came the lighting of candles in house windows, a tradition which we duly followed tonight.
It also typically marked the time of year when candles were no longer necessary for indoor day labourers as it was light until around five. With this eye on the season and thus also the weather, tradition also dictated that whatever the weather today, the year ahead would be the dominated by the opposite. This is good news as it was bally cold today, although my sons decided there wasn’t much scientific reason to believe such a thing. We did decide, however, that sometimes it’s fun to believe things you know aren’t true, if only for a moment.
If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will have another fight.
If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain,
Winter won’t come again.
