Summer, and Not-Yet Summer

And so, once again we celebrate this Feast of the Sunday after Ascension When Everybody Acts Like It's Ascension Again, Except Catholics Who go to a Church Where They Celebrate Ordinary Form During The Week But a Traditionalist Church at Home on Sunday. For whom today is just....Sunday. As if anyone could say it's "just" Sunday.

Today is also the first day of the Festival of Summer and Not-Yet Summer. That period between the Feast of the Visitation and Solstice, when we remember once again that meteorologists aren't ordinary people. Ordinary folk like us, dipping our toes in an icy North Sea, or putting another copy of The God Delusion on the fire, we know it's still Spring. And yet weather-folk, trying to keep their books tidy and living in awe of spreadsheet columns as they do, insist it's summer three weeks earlier than it is. Begs the question why they don't move Winter to be Jan-Mar, through to Autumn being Oct-Dec. Would keep their seasons all in one year. Although it would make "In the Bleak Midwinter" a bit odd.

Whatever. Today being both Spring and Summer makes it liminal. And you can't beat a bit of liminality. Makes everything all gray and uncertain. And Beaker Folk like that. So welcome to this 3-week Festival of the Liminality of Seasonality. Let's hope it's a scorcha. Phew.