May morning

It's the same every May morning.

Let's light the Wicker Man, stay up all night, watch the sun rise in the morning we say.

But the hand-fasting celebrations meant we never got to have any pre-emptive sleep yesterday afternoon.  So we went straight from the reception to the Wicker Man to the Beltane Fire to howling at the tiny crescent moon as it rose. And now it's been 24 hours awake solid and we've all got a bit grumpy. Not least because the crescent is now so slender that it rose to a chorus of despair from the Gibbon Moon people who are convinced that this time, for certain, it's curtains for the moon.

That's the trouble with special religious occasions with related sleep deprivation. You start off all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and full of the excitement of the unusual time of day - knowing this is a special moment. But half a day later, the hours are dragging by and you're getting so tired you haven't even got the energy left to throw empty beer cans at the morris dancers.

I don't know whether the sunrise was pretty or not, or even whether it was cloudy or clear. Frankly I was so bleary and tired I was passing in and out of sleep all the way through the whole sunrise event. So apologies for the confused liturgical responses. Yes, I actually I meant "Beltane" when I said "Samhain". And I meant "We have come through the darkness of night" when what I actually said was "Kill the Silence on sight". I've no idea why we do this to ourselves every year.

Now, if it's OK by everyone, I'm off to bed. I know you've got a big day's partying ahead of you and there's maypole dancing and the Queen of the May to elect and you're going to be recreating the Oxonian tradition of falling off a punt after too much Pimms. But I need to recover. See you all round about, I don't know, Autumn?