Approaching Samhain

So the wheel turns, and with it all of us.  Normally as Summer approaches I get into that garden and you won't see me back in the house until the skies begin to darken and the last tomato ripens and drops from the vine, but this year I hardly even made it into the garden to plant them!

We let the backyard grow wild (last year I'd planted teasels and this year they just took over the backyard, along with all the "weeds" and herbs that are a stalwart when it comes to our gardens.  With regard to the allotment, well.... our mayor from Watford did an about face and decided that we could keep our allotment after all (although, apparently, we've now been told she's back to her original plan of ousting us all).  It's so confusing!  Next year I've decided to ignore the prophets of doom and actually get down there and start digging regardless of the weather and regardless of whether we get to keep the land afterwards of not.  We may have to, D and I plan on moving somewhere a little more urban, so we may lose our backyard altogether. 

Of course I cannot solely blame Dorothy Thorn(y)hill for our lack of gardening this year- partly it was also due to us just really needing to "take a break".

I like an overgrown garden anyway, for at least two reasons:

1. It's messy so looks like an abandoned plot, is mysterious and one can imagine pixies, fairies, gnomes, etc come dancing under the moon on certain special days; and
2. It's messy so when you tidy it (if you tidy it) you get a wonderful sense of achievement by actually doing just that.
3. Even though this is actually more than two reasons, this reason should be the main reason, because wildlife don't really flock to tidy gardens - nature is chaotic, even when it's trying to be ordered.  If you are wanting to help the environment, let that garden overgrow.

Anyway - following on from the sunny season, around the end of July usually, I start to plan our Hallowe'en celebrations (or Samhain for the initiated) event.  It's my favourite time of year, and we put a lot  of effort into decorating our house, our front window and the hallway for when the trick or treaters come a calling.

Our Hallway in October 2011

This year, however, we will be heading to non other than New York City USA to celebrate the scary season - and even though our boy has professed that there really is NO other city on this planet that he would rather see before heading back to Oz at the end of this year, I think I may just be a little more excited than he that I will actually be celebrating this holiday in the country that truly does the best job at celebrating this holiday altogether.  Somebody remind me that this trip is all about Zack... quick, before I book tickets for Blood Manor.

Funnily enough, because Americans have embraced Hallowe'en as an actual celebration to be enjoyed by all the people over here in Blighty have erroneously come to the conclusion that this holiday was actually invented in America. I've even had arguments with little old ladies in the Pound Shop who were starting to complain about all the American things that were seeping their way into the British culture.  "It's a Celtic tradition" I tell them.  They don't buy it.  After all, Celts didn't have pumpkins they retort.  I won't be beaten even though they are already exiting the store.  I run chasing after them as they try to evade my fervor "They used to hollow out gourds," I shout after them as they scurry on down the high street towards Marks & Spencers with surprising speed.  "The kids in Scotland would travel from door to door...." I continue to shout but they've already managed to lose me in the crowd.

Darn it, I nearly had them convinced.

Oh-oh Mad Bessie (Bam-ba-lam)

For Beltane this year I wanted to do two things for certain regardless of what happened on the day:  I wanted to be in a forest for as much of it as possible and I wanted to take the day as a holiday.  So I booked 1 May 2013 off and so did +David .

Ideally it would be good to have taken both the day before and/or the day after.  Actually whilst we're being ideal about it all, why didn't I just take the whole week off? After all, 1 May being a Wednesday.

Wednesday's are "hump" days - in that they are the middle of the week.  You get past Wednesday and it's ALLLLL down hill 'til the weekend.  So when you take Wednesday off, it creates a couple of mini working-weeks.  Which means your brain is pretty much confused cum Thursday when it thinks it's sort of Monday.  Well I wasn't being very ideal and I just booked off the day.  Meant going back to work today was a right pain.  And it was.

I digress.  Beltane. 2013.  Yesterday.  Holeeeday!

We had to be in a forest so I took a satellite view of the area surrounding us the night before.  This is how I found the vast green expanse that you see below.  The joy of living on the edge of London - half the folk that live here honestly have no idea of what is right on their doorstep with regards to wild places and spaces.

 And then my eye caught the words "Mad Bess Wood".... I mean.... come on....?  It was settled - we HAD to go and pay a visit.

Perhaps not so odd was that whilst we walked there we began by talking about trees and spring.  For example: "What birds bring spring?" When the red-red robin comes bop-bop boppin along, is it meant to be spring?  I've seen some crazy memes involving the Boy Wonder and folks seeing him in their backyard and deducing that "it must be spring" so I get that robins may be a symbol for this... but I see robins all year round in Watford and as +David pointed out, the robin in the snow is one of the Yuletide seasons most popular non-christian greeting card.

So are there actually specific birds that come and visit your garden during the spring?  The only one that we could think of was a Canadian Goose.  Although this year they arrived around February.  More an Imbolc ice-maiden than than a Beltane babe.

I started to sing regularly my little ditty in the style of Monty Python, the lyrics for this resembling the following: "Now is the month of May....hay....hey! and green buds all are swelling".  We explored Park Wood, Copse and of course Mad Bess Wood!  It really required the extra emphasis.  By the end of the walk we had moved on to a variation of Black Betty, of course sung Mad Bessie and really there is no need to mention anymore singing.

On the way to the Lido we found a burnt out cottage, within it a discarded bonnet, and the smashed remains of a little china doll.  It was all rather eerie. By the Lido there was a overflow drain that actually really resembled one of the six direct doorways to hell.  All through the woods we heard the strange scritching scratching of Mad Bess' toenails clacking across the forest floor (okay, that last sentence was just me and my big imagination but I I'm sure the local kids have a tale or two to tell about the place along those lines).

We did come across a rare site - a grass snake slithering across the forest floor.  In fact it was the strange rustling noise it made over the leaves and twigs that drew my attention to it.  Fabulous moment.   That, and the marsh tits.  There were some GREAT tits!  Oh, and it was pretty warm, we didn't see many BLUE tits... yeah, I could go on but I probably shouldn't.

We actually found Mad Bess Cottage too.  Turns out the cottage (how quaint to call it that, I mean, it only has 5 bedrooms...!) was built for the local Gamekeeper around the beginning of the 18th century... and said Gamekeeper mayhaps had a wife called Bess who used to prowl the forest at night looking for poachers?  Well that's what this site tries to intimate anyway.  Then I found a whole blog on the subject.  which was clearly created by somebody on August 5 2012.... and they never posted anything again......!

Then I typed Mad Bess Cottage in google and under images came up this lovely image.  When I clicked on the link I was taken to a genealogy website... but i couldn't find the image anywhere.  Then I noticed the distinctive chimney shape in the background.... could this be Mad Bess?   Do you notice how it seems her smile grows the longer you look at her?

I quite like her hand bag.  It's very practical if you need to conceal an axe or a small hammer.

Belting Out About Beltane

Yes, I suffer from SED - Seasonal Effective Disorder.  You will note that I am trying to be a clever wordsmith.  Hence why I am not saying that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, although in actual fact I probably do and it would manifest itself negatively a heck of a lot more if if I did not enforce a very strict regime of Seasonal Effective Disorder.

Compiled by Dr. Beth Gott of the School of
Biological Sciences, Monash University.

Basically what I do is take note of the Seasons, and then haphazardly do stuff that is based around them.  Crazy stuff.  Like sing around old trees (oh alright, maybe only in the spring and summer.... when the weather is nice ;-)

 When I was a child, it was either good weather or bad weather.  I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and Crowded House have written a song about living there called 4 Seasons in One Day.  Melbourne can seriously manifest these crazy weather patterns in a single day.  So I never really took note of the seasons at all.  As it turns out, this was probably a relatively sensible thing to do.  Everyone was trying to tell me that Melbourne has four seasons, but the native population documented at least six.

Now that I've moved to the Northern Hemisphere, apart from recognising all the flora and fauna from my childhood fairy tales suddenly popping up in the backyard, I have also noted the onset of the seasons.  And in particular, the pagan calendar wheel which celebrates 8 distinct periods over event year.

This can be loads and loads of fun - many major religions base their festivals around these calendrical points too, but i tend to take the whole religious aspect with a pinch of salt (although if I spill some I throw it over my left shoulder whilst reciting random snippets from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings...;-)

So Beltane approaches us, May 1, and this is one of the first years where I've honestly felt like I've slipped back to Medieval England with regard to the weather patterns.  Spring normally arrived at the end of February but this year it has taken absolute ages to come.  Fianlly, the daffodils have ended their blooming and the bluebells are budding.  Time to get to the allotment!

David and I have now had an allotment for about 3 years.  Our local council wants to build a series of flats over  the top of them and claims that this will somehow benefit the building of a new hospital (erm... they'll be flats.... not hospital wards... come again?).  Our Mayor, Dorothy Thornhill, is a Liberal Democrat cum Autocrat and I have ceased to have any desire to vote for her party as a result.  I mean, David and I have only had our plot for a few years, but some people have been cultivating their patch for over 25 years!!  Nothing can ever compensate them if the plots are taken away!

Don't even get me started on how important the allotments are with regard to being a haven for the local wildlife in the area!  David and I found a species of endangered bumble bees nesting in our compost a couple of years back.  Bet THAT isn't ever taken into consideration when they parcel off our "derelict" land.  Derelict INDEED Dorothy.  Go back to Kansas, we don't want you here no more (but we'll keep Toto, coz he's a blameless cute puppy).
 
It's funny, because I love gardening, but only once I am doing it.  In the wintery months leading up to spring I am often wondering if I will do any gardening this year.  Seriously, I cannot even get motivated until the earth defrosts and the daffodils start to bloom.  And then some time in August/September, I completely lose interest again.  All my careful organising flies out the window.  I can't be bothered to wash pots anymore, and those that need washing are instead stacked haphazardly in plastic bins to await the following year.

What I really need is hired help, but this incarnation of my little soul is not intended to have such a life of privilege.  Actually, compared to many my life is incredibly privileged and I try to remember that whenever I wish I had more.  It's always a desire for more.  If only I had..... yeah, yeah, and pretty soon we'll be needing that yacht, I mean, it'll be a necessity.  I try to be reasonable with my dreams.  A plot of land big enough to sustain David and myself, and enough cash to visit my friends and family from time to time (or enough space to put them up should they come to visit us!).

So we went to our allotment, and not having been since September last year meant I was dreading the overgrown jungle that would greet us, but, perhaps not so surprisingly considering the weather of late, it was really rather ordered.  Perhaps it's because every year we dig up the grasses and throw the roots into the compost heap - most people just cut the grass (and then wonder why it keeps growing back stronger).  We did tackle the blackberry's and, well, they put up a bit of a fight.  I often anthropomorphise plants when they sting me or tear at my flesh.  Then I cut them.  Clearly I'm a closet psychopath, but see the photo as to how they treated me before you judge me too harshly.  One must be ruthless, they take no prisoners.

We have created a blackberry fence, and I hope that the vines will sprout into a gorgeous produce that we will make jam.  Jam that will be coloured much like the blood that it drew from my scalp.  What goes around clearly comes around.