21st May!
Well I survived the 21st May! And chances are that if you are reading this you did too, unless of course, my ‘ramblings’ are reaching heights I could previously only have dreamt of!
April Showers
April passed us by with very little in the way of the usual, expected showers. This appears to be nothing to worry about as in Derbyshire in 1615 no rain fell between 25th March and the 2nd May, and life still goes on! Nothing new under the sun (or in the puddle) as the anonymous ‘they’ say! Although we are already being warned of the dreaded water shortages! Water barons, it’s time to mend all those leaking pipes, and open up all those local reservoirs and bore holes which were shut down in favour of ‘funny’ tasting chemical infused water courtesy of the big water companies!
‘Never Cast a Clout’
As we progress towards the end of May we are experiencing March winds, or gales to be more accurate. But, the end of May promises us we’ll at last be able to ‘cast a clout’! That’s not to say that, come the 1st June, you will be allowed to go round clonking people willy-nilly, no, it means you’ll be able to discard that old winter vest! (The dictionary definition, in this context, of ‘clout’ is ‘a piece of cloth or clothing’.)
It’s not clear whether May in this context means the end of the month or the end of the May blossom, namely the hawthorn. But with two months of temperatures in the 90s being forecast you’ll at least feel a little cooler!
As a child I was never allowed to get ready for summer until the 1st June. May could have been ‘boiling hot’ and June could be ‘freezing’ (dad remembered snow in June!), but mother’s expression ‘Never cast a clout till May’s out’ stood firm and had to be adhered to!
Nettling Day
Of course, when you nonchalantly throw off your old thermals (and tuck them neatly in a bin bag under the bed) everyone will see the evidence on your now exposed flesh that you didn’t manage to find an oak apple on ‘Oak Apple’ or ‘Royal Oak Day’! Mother, god rest her cushion plumping soul, remembered children when she went to school back in the 1920s, being severely whipped with nettles if they weren’t sporting an oak ‘apple’ or ‘ball’ on the 29th May! This miserable day for some was also called ’Nettling Day’! Break out the dock leaves!
An oak apple or ball is a spongy ‘ball shaped’ gall (informal growth) caused by wasp larvae.
Royal Oak Day
Royal Oak Day commemorates the Restoration of Charles the Second and his ride back into London on his birthday in 1660. After the Battle of Worcester on the 3rd September 1651 Charles hid in an oak tree at Boscobel in Shropshire to avoid capture.
On a recent visit to Boscobel we were shown the ‘Royal Oak’ only to be told that it was not the original tree but an acorn from the original tree! Yeh! Right! Ever the cynic!
June is ‘Bursting Out’
June will soon be ‘bursting out all over’ and for about the seventh year running I haven’t heard the cuckoo! He was an integral part of my spring! One year he sat on the telephone wires outside our abode and woke us up at three or four every morning for days!
Thanks for your time. Take care! Speak soon!
The Bumpkin Rambler xx
