Beltane

Only a month of blogging to go! I can see why people have this on/off relationship with a blog; it is a constant background to your life, this open letter to friends and family and possibly people you don't know. But I will stick with the original plan and finish it at the end of this month, so that the observations cover the three months of spring.

Tonight was warm enough to sit outside until the sun went behind a cloud, part of a low dark pattern of clouds - thick ink in clear pale blue water - that sat on the western horizon. Then it turned cool. The sky is pale and clear and we may get a touch of frost tonight. It has not been warm. This time last year we filled the small courtyard in the old house with candles in pots and sat outside until 10pm. And I remember the first April in that house, when we hadn't even cleared the garden; we hung the candle pots and lanterns on the old tree and sat outside in the gloaming making faces at the little boy next door.

The hedgerows are full of wild flowers, primulas, cowslips, honesty, late daffodils, escaped tulips. The woods are beginning to show life on the ground. On the back road between Aymestrey and Deerfold is a long bank of woods, incredibly steep, which is starting to come alive with bluebells and white wood anemones.

And it is Beltane, one of the turning points of the old Celtic year; in Irish-Gaelic the whole month was called 'bealtaine'. The feast marked the end of winter, the start of the summer grazing. An alternative pattern of days, other possibilities to the division of the year. Old calendars hold a great fascination, as if secrets are hidden there, lost folklore, even lost science.