Family Stuff: Summer is a cummin in

It's May!The lusty month of May! That lovely month when everyone goes Blissfully astray."

So sang the young Vanessa Redgrave in the film version of 'Camelot'. She is at the National at the moment in a one woman play about bereavement. Still beautiful, she is. Boris Johnson has just been elected as Mayor of London thus adding evidence toward the theory that this is, indeed, a 'wacky' month or, more kindly, a month for change ('summer is a cummin in', as they say).

"It's here, that shocking time of year!When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear"

Very few wicked thoughts but I am feeling 'green and luscious' today and quite willing to'go astray' in a May like way. May Day (Beltane) customs include: walking the circuit of one's property ('beating the bounds'), repairing fences and boundary markers, processions of chimney-sweeps and milk maids, archery tournaments, morris dances, sword dances, feasting, music, drinking, and maidens bathing their faces in the dew of May morning to retain their youthful beauty and villagers dancing round Maypoles to celebrate fertility.

Heralding the start of Summer, Beltane is now celebrated from sundown April 30th to sundown on the first of May, but before the calendar changes of 1752, all dates year-round would have come some days later, during which time the hawthorn ("mayflower") and many more trees and more flowers would have begun blooming. A fertile time.

The Puritans disapproved of May Day celebrations and Kipling wrote

Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,Or he would call it a sin; But we have been out in the woods all night, A-conjuring Summer in!

But there are bluebells in my garden, it's very early, and greenfinches, blue tits, great tits and a pair of robins are gorging themselves on the birdfeeder. It's a lovely day!
Looking forward to a day in the garden (after haircut and taking washing to the laundry because the washing machine broke last night) and then to 'Richard III' at the Roundhouse with John.

Sarah and James have just bought a puppy, who is very sleepy and plays with Sarah's slippers (not his toys). Snoopy by name and, I think a