Times of Balance

It really was such a nice couple of afternoons over the weekend. And I'm afraid that Luzi was overcome by climate-alarmist headlines such as "first warm day ever in Scotland." So she came rushing out onto the lawn just now, to join in with our Pouring-out of Beakers in the first new moon after Solstice. In bare feet.

She's just got into slippers and we've made her a vegetarian Bovril. She can't actually talk but I'm sure she'll be fine.

Vernon Equinox

So once again the sun stands over the equator at lunchtime, and it's spring again.

So there we were at a quarter past five, freezing cold, looking up at a blank equinoctial sky. And out of the dark looms a tall bloke.

He says his name is Vernon Equinox - the bringer of balance. I asked - isn't that Cygnus? And he accused me of being an old hippy Rush fan. Which was rather rude, I thought.

Turns out he's ambidextrous, even-handed in dealing with disputes, naturally level-headed and sanguine to the point of boredom. He's the living embodiment of days and nights being in harmony.

Well, anybody who's used to harmony isn't going to cope with Husborne Crawley. Hnaef has just failed - once again - to do his Equinoctial Tightrope Act. Normally he just falls in the duck pond, but on this occasion he landed plum on Vernon's Head. Hnaef's grateful for the soft landing, of course, but poor old Vernon's now walking around in circles. That's nothing like as evenly-balanced in my opinion.

June Folklore - sponsored by KetaVision

And so welcome to June. Or, as we must all now learn to call it - The Month of June, sponsored by KetaVision.

I thought hard before choosing KetaVision as our sponsor - or, as I prefer to say - Reputation Co-Edifier. But  their slogan - "The Entertainment System that anaesthetises you from reality" - was the kind of image I wanted the Beaker Folk to project in this hardest of early twenty-first centuries. And I couldn't really imagine anyone else giving us such large amounts of money, either.

June as a month is of great folkloric significance - and this June in particular is particularly stunning. For example, this June starts on the 1st of the month - which is traditional - with a New Moon! And, somewhere in the world, a Solar Eclipse! This hasn't happened since quite recently, which we think is terribly imporant.

Meanwhile, the BBC programme "Springwatch" has just started. Even as the BBC's weather forecasters have started claiming it's now "Summer". I'm trying to work out if this is a cunning plan on the part of the "Springwatch" producers to make it look like Global Warming is happening - and whether future series will be broadcast from a beach in the Med in August, to further increase the "oo isn't Spring warm this year" effect.

Back to solar matters, and in June each year we have a Solstice, at which we of the Beaker Folk fail to get up because it's so early. Although the following day, we greet each other with that traditional blessing "Nights are drawing in", to which the correct response is "Soon be Christmas." People in the Southern Hemisphere should note that, since it's December* down under, this response is optional.

On St John's Eve, all the young people of country areas would, until the Victorians stopped it, go out into the woods and fields to celebrate Midsummer. This was normally followed by that other great rural tradition, a baby-boom in March.

This June is also brought to you by the colour green, the number 3, the Letters A and B and the belief that Sesame Street is produced to you by a bunch of lefty pink-liberals. Although we suspect that this belief may only really be held by Muppets.

* Only joking.

The return of Spring

And such is the English climate.

We were revelling in the latest set of unprecedentedly warm conditions. In the belief that, even in mid-May, Summer had already set in. Before his latest trip to the United States, Hnaef had celebrated a whole series of barbecues. We haven't yet defined barbecues as religious festivals, but in the triumph they display of faith over evidence and experience, and the wholesale evidence of burnt offerings, we think that we may be on to something.

As I write tonight, the showers are glancing off the conservatory roof. Out across the Great Lawn, a few members of the Hnaefist Order of Beaker Folk are struggling to light a barbecue. That the tray is full to overflowing with rainwater does not seem to stop them. For a short while I considered getting the fires lit tonight - but I have decided to preserve the fuel until we really need a fire, in August

There is no doubt in my mind, as I glance at my mud-encrusted Wellington boots, that Spring is back. We celebrated summer i-cumen in on May 1, and now things are going backwards. It is often the way with the English weather, of course.

I look out of the East side of the conservatory, and I see the stalls that Drayton's people had set up for their Church Fete on Saturday being blown away and down into the brook. And I smile a little. We are in England. And everything is normal.

An Equinoctial Retrospective

And so we near the end of the First Day of Spring. And a little retrospection is, as always on these great days, in order. Although, to be strictly accurate, it's not yet the Equinox. The sun will pass over the equator -somewhere due north of New Zealand, presumably - at 11.21 tonight in the UK. And all will be balanced on the earth.
As usual on an equinox, we were treated to more daylight than darkness. A little bonus that you don't count on. And if you don't believe me, look here. So the height of the sun is well advanced now in our northern climes - but the temperature lags behind. Somewhere in the Great House, as I am writing this, Young Keith is making yet another disastrous attempt to light the log fire. I will have to go and sort him out in a minute, as Hnaef walked past my office door a moment ago, with an intent look and what appeared to be a coil of magnesium ribbon. This can only end badly.
Hnaef had his traditional Vernal Equinox, of course. Plummeting from great height off his tightrope into the duckpond, as he does regularly every equinox. One day his demonstration of the wonders of balance may work, but I'm not counting on it being soon. I'm thinking it's about time we put in yet another Duckhenge, so if he tries it again in the autumn he may well come a cropper. This time, as every spring, he merely scattered frogspawn all over the banks and upset a couple of grebes.
And now, as we idle away the three hours until we light the Great Equinoctial Fire - knowing it's not long till we light the Great Beltane Fire - a thought strikes me. Surely it's not that long since Christmas, is it?

And a little post-script. I note that, what with it being Equinox and Super Moon, the Severn Bore is in the news again. I saw the Severn Bore once. He was a bloke called Archie, in a pub in Gloucester.

Balance in all things

To celebrate the Vernal Equinox, as ever we are going to be celebrating our Festival of Balance.

The see-saw is set up - or, at least, a plank and an oil barrel. They've been having four or five people jump on one end at once, to propel the sucker on the other end high into the sky. Not really balance, but at least they're trying.

Hnaef is, once again, going to try to tightrope walk across the Duck Pond. Which should be bad news for the new tadpoles.

And all Beaker Folk of uncertain balance are being issued with water wings and balancing poles. It makes them inclined to get stuck in doors, but we are hopeful that we'll stop them falling over. Not least because it makes it impossible for them to enter the White Horse and get a pint.

Now if you'll excuse me it's time to get out there and squint at the horizon. I'm sure something is going to happen.

Super Moon

At this time of the year, we celebrate the new life flooding into the environs of Husborne Crawley. But it's all a little slow this year. The Daffs haven't really kicked off, only the apricots are in blossom and the Beaker Fertility Folk are confining themselves to barracks until Mayday.

But it's Super Moon later!  Can you imagine? Not your boring old Full Moon  - beautiful, yellow, scary, sure - but just full.  This is a Super Moon! 14% bigger!

Guaranteed to produce earthquakes in Japan two weeks before it happens, and other related disasters, because it's a Super Moon.
Let's just, for a moment, consider the scientific load of foetid dingo's kidneys we're dealing with here. "Did the Supermoon cause earthquake?" asks the Sun. No. No, it didn't. It didn't because even if a "Super Moon" could cause an earthquake (it can't) the earthquake didn't happen now, it happened then. When there wasn't a full moon, and the moon wasn't at perigee. It was just somewhere in its orbit, and crescent. Not a super moon, and not even gibbous - let alone full. No, it didn't cause it. Or, to put it into full scientific rigour - no. For goodness' sake get a grip.

Now it actually is Super Moon, can that cause extreme weather, earthquakes, volcanoes and worldwide woe? No. It it can't. It can't because it's not actually that super. We get full moons every month with no discernible ill effects (apart from the werewolf hauntings on the Ridgmont Road, but I reckon that's a co-incidence). And we get the Moon at perigee monthly also. This one's slightly closer.  So yippee. We even get the "Super Moon" every 18 years or so - and yet, after billions of years of Super Moons, the Earth is still spinning and we're all here. To be on the safe side, I should say that any disasters that do happen today will be a co-incidence.

I'm gonna add this to the "ooh let's get irrationally excited" pile in the Community compost heap. Alongside the "Planets in alignment end the world" scare we get every few years. Though I'd better worry. That pile of compost is getting pretty high. And the Super Moon could cause it spontaneously to combust. It does things like that.

Dancing Barefoot in the Spring Dew

It seemed a good idea at the time. Dancing barefoot in the spring dew - sounds romantic, alternative, wild and free.

In retrospect.

Dew is awfully cold, it turns out. And down by the brook the ground's still fairly sodden.

I've taken  a long hard look at this morning and I've got to be fair. Responsibility has to be accepted. That's what leadership is all about. Identifying Aelfine as the cause of this morning's disaster.

I'm off to wash the mud off my feet now I've finally extracted myself from it. I suggest the rest of you do the same. Although it won't be so nice in cold water.

Rites of Spring

A great celebration of bursting of blossom, swelling of buds, rising of sap and other nature-related subjects we could have made doubles-entendres of if we had the energy.

Glad to see everyone out in the Orchard for our Springtime Festival this afternoon. I know it was technically a little early, being a fortnight before the Vernal Equinox. But with Lent breaking out all over the place I thought it would be better if we focussed on something cheerful. And the sun was shining. So we danced around and celebrated the growing greenery.

Shame it actually wasn't all that warm. Everyone's in the Dining Room huddled round the log fire, drinking mulled Tizer. Which isn't nice, but it is warm. And it is Lent.

Rainy day Ritual

Our "full of the joys of spring" ritual was, in all senses of the world, a washout.

I blame myself. Once again I applied the Met Office's "global warming determinator" to the weather forecast. Based on which, given that we have seen a warming trend since mid-December, I assessed that it was never going to rain again. How wrong I was.

Turned out the only spring flowers to be seen were the ultra-early daffs, the snowdrops and crocuses.
The liturgical singing of "I'm walking on sunshine" in procession transpired to be one of the wettest experiences we've known since the Moot House flooded.

Gathering Rosebuds has been put off to when we may. It's officially still winter.

An early frost

"April is the cruellest month", wrote Eliot. And in many respects he had a point. April is a spring month, when the strengthening sun taunts the hungry with the knowledge that abundance is just three months away. But then December is a cruel month. It's a more obviously cruel month, of course. But it's still cruel. The bitterness of the frost, the knowledge that, even as it's getting light, it will soon be dark. The 4-hour queues for the Queen Elizabeth Bridge, whatever that is.

The trouble with wild rabbits is their memories are so short. The younger ones don't even remember last winter. They have only ever known green grass, green leaves, green shoots. They look at a grey sky and the weird white crystals that cover grass and don't know what it means. They panic. They think maybe their eyesight has stopped working with colour. The older ones remember that sometimes there is crispy, white stuff on the ground but they don't remember why. So they panic as well.

There's a kind of rabbit folk memory. It says that, from time to time, the days get short and the nights get long and the place generally gets dark and cold. And in these days, says the Rabbit Unconscious, rabbits can die if they're not careful. The  memory is passed down through generations. And at times the bunnies find it unlikely. The ones born in autumn can't even imagine what "hot" feels like, how the sun looks when it's nearly overhead, what young shoots taste like on a dewy May morning. They can get snarky and say that "spring" is just a fantasy that the old ones tell to keep them digging the burrows, to give them some kind of purpose.  Some say it's just going to get colder forever.

But the old ones just nod wisely and tell them, as sure as the sun comes back each day - even when you can't see it - one day it will be warm again, and there will be carrots to eat in the Archdruid's vegetable plot. And that whatever else they do, they mustn't go losing hope and wandering off and getting eaten by the foxes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

The Festival of the Almond

The Almond is one of the great signs of spring.  Prunus Dulis , even in the northerly climes of Husborne Crawley, will show its delicate pink blossoms ahead of pear, apple and cherry.
Ours has finally started to show some colour.  It's been a long, hard winter but we can celebrate that the weather has finally picked up.  Which is just as well.  As a number of our folk had been demanding that we start burning stuff to encourage the sun to grow stronger.  And as I often point out, I'm not sympathetic to sympathetic magic.

Our Weather Sage, Weregild, tells me that we're set fair now.  No more bad weather ere the Winter Storms begin.  All's well with the world; the Lark is on the Wing, the frogs are spawning, norming and performing and Marston has taken off his vest.

So I'm looking forward to this evening's activities.  And we're lucky enough to have two events going on.  The "Living with Lactose Intolerance" workshop takes place in the Moot House and the Stilton Cheese-Rolling Competition will be held in the courtyard outside.  What could possibly go wrong?

However note that the "Loving the Bodhran" evening tomorrow has been cancelled after somebody stuck a biro through the skins of each of the seventeen drums.  We suspect that music-lovers may be responsible.

Festival of Frogspawn

Dear fellow Beaker Folk and other readers

I'm afraid the Archdruid is still having a bit of a lay-down this morning after the shock of discovering she'd been wearing a cloak made from a skinned badger all day yesterday. The anthrax tests were negative, I'm pleased to say - but we're still waiting on the TB results.

We are struggling this morning with Hnaef's absence (he's on an archery residential for people with no thumbs) and Drayton's unfortunate incarceration in the Gulfing Room. Therefore the lot has fallen on me to prepare the liturgy of the Festival of Frogspawn, to celebrate this new and exciting sign of spring breaking out all over.

Now some say that accountants are dull people, unable to produce creative and inspiring liturgy. But I hope this Ceremony will still those doubts. alt.worship, a respect for nature and double-entry precision can co-exist.

The Festival of Frogspawn

Liturgical Dress - quiet, sober business suits

The procession to the Pond - Beaker People will walk precisely 2 seconds apart as timed by Burton's watch.

Leader: Oh look! There's a bit of frogspawn
All: And another bit!

Leader: That makes two bits of frogspawn!
All: Oh, no - look -another bit!

Leader: Making three in all.
All: Look, it's a bit cold....

Leader: Hey! Here's a fourth bit!
All: You know, it's lovely and sunny but it is a bit parky stil...

Leader: Five bits! There's a bit over here!
All: So we're just...

Leader: Maybe there's some round the island. I'll just get the punt...
All: We're a bit bored with frogspawn now. Is it OK if we...

The Leader jumps into the punt. In relief, the assembled Beaker Folk confiscate the pole, push the punt out into the middle of the pond and leave him to it.

Young Keith: That's it! I'm off to get some breakfast
All: And we're all with you.

More Spring

There's a real Wind in the Willows theme about the place now.  Burton just turned up in his convertible, roof down and horn going "poop poop".
But it's still freezing.  We've been pushing hot toddies into him and providing him with hot water bottles.  So we're optimistic that by the end of the night he may be a lighter shade of blue.

And a talking rat

Merely having thought about Spring seems to cause it to come on apace.  Not two minutes ago I went out to yell at Young Keith to get on with re-wattling the Doily Shed wall he blew up earlier, and a talking rat, a mole and a badger ran past chasing a toad in a small car.
It's really bad news, Spring springing so rapidly like that.  Now we're going to have keep an eye out for the Piper at the Gates of Dawn.  And his hooves make such a mess on the fields when they're as muddy as this.

Nearly Spring?

I note that Judith Starkadder, on sight of the wandering man, has decided Spring may be in the air.
I think she may be wrong, but you can only hope.  There may no longer be anything nasty in the woodshed, but it still doesn't seem to be a bundle of laughs on Cold Comfort Farm.