The clocks went forward last night so we are officially in summer time. As my sons both live in different far away countries, Australia and Thailand, we have to recalculate the best times to talk. I am sure I am not alone in having our families in distant lands or families tantalisingly closer but still inaccessibly beyond our shores. The long separation will be all the more joyous we are all together again.
Spring is truly here in all its majesty and I am thrilled to welcome nesting blue tits. They live in the tiny crack where the boards are rotten going into my garage. It is hard to believe that they can get into such a tiny hole, but squeeze in they do. The birds were earlier bringing material for their nest but now all is quiet again so I presume the female is laying her clutch of eggs. Sadly there is no way of seeing inside, so I will just have to wait patiently and in about three weeks I hope to see the parent birds bringing food.
We have had a mixture of weather - a few quite heavy frosts amid several warm and balmy days with the result that the crops are still not ready for the crop circle Intelligence to visit us yet. In the past we have occasionally had a few oil seed rape (canola) circles resting gloriously among the vivid yellow flowers. Looking back on previous years there was the beautiful large ring with seven arcs spanning its centre on 23rd April 2007 at Oliver’s Castle, near Devises, Wiltshire.
The sixteen pointed 'sunburst' formation at Avebury, Wiltshire on 23rd April 2009.
And finally, in 2010, we had perhaps the most important and amazing Wilton Windmill formation that was discovered on 23rd May.
It could only be seen from the top of the windmill or from the air and the weekend during which it arrived, the windmill was closed. It was a complex circular formation of twelve segments, with eight concentric lines of differing length and number in each segment. It is a close approximation of Leonhard Euler's profound and beautiful equation - e^(hi)pi)1=0.
Oil seed rape (canola) is one of the easiest in which to determine whether it is man-made or not. It is a well-known fact that due to the crop having a hollow based stem, it snaps when bent at an angle of more than 40 degrees. As a result, it would not be possible to make the circle without breaking, snapping, crushing or bruising the crop as the images show.
A few days ago I took one of my special cameras out to make certain all was well and took a few pictures of the latest spring flowers.
Celandine Spring Squill - I think?
I also read that by tradition, St Tiburtius’ Day (15th April) is the day when you might first hear the cuckoo. I have a love/hate relationship with the cuckoo. I hate the way it takes over the nests of smaller birds forcing the parents to work themselves into the ground trying to feed the rapidly growing greedy interloper fledgling as it sits squawking, growing bigger and still yet bigger, endlessly demanding food and yet more food. On the other hand, it is the sound of summer, warm long days and the sound of the bright new green leaves swaying gently on the trees. I did not hear one last year but to my surprise and joy, I heard one just a short while ago when sitting on a bench basking in the sun in my village! Like so many birds they travel long distances from Africa where they have been wintering. Many don’t survive the journey. There is no doubt that its numbers are diminishing and I am told that those who come from the south west via Spain to the UK often do not survive the journey due to the increasing droughts, which make it difficult for them to gain sufficient weight to survive. However, those that travel to Scotland and Wales take a different path via Italy where the food is more plentiful and so they arrive safely at their destinations.
But what of St Tiburtius? I cannot find much that is reliable, I regret.
The little we do know much about him is that he was one of three Saints Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus who “...as Christian martyrs who were buried on 14th April of some unspecified year in the Catacombs of Praetextatus on the Via Appia near Rome.
According to the legendary Acts of Saint Cecilia, a mid-fifth-century Acts of the Martyrs composition that has no historical value Valerian was the husband of Saint Cecilia, Tiburtius his brother, and Maximus, a soldier or official who was martyred with these two. The story was retold by Chaucer. Devotional publications make the story more credible by simplifying it”
Spring Equinox
The Spring Equinox arrived on the 21st / 22nd of March. Normally it heralds disturbed weather patterns over a period of a few days but this year, meteorologically, all was unusually quiet. However, the planets seemed to affect us as humans, bringing forth some temporary disharmony and unrest in the form of unruly demonstrations.
The word equinox comes from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night). For our ancestors, whose timekeeping was less precise than ours, day and night likely did seem equal but in fact it is not strictly true as I am told that “There is more daylight than night time on the day of the equinox, an additional 8 or so minutes of daylight at mid-temperate latitudes.”
Equinox was also a time of celebration for our ancestors as the rhythm of the earth changed bringing renewed energy to the land as it warmed; their crops showed new growth and the world around them seemed to breath with joyous expectation.
As always I am including Pam Gregory’s latest video for all those interested in astrology.
Please remember to book your places on my tours before they both fill up.
I have reduced the price of my 2021 calendar to £8.00, and my Nine-fold Circuitous Crop Circle Montage jigsaw puzzle is back in stock.
Poem
What a wonderful world!
"May God grant you always…
A sunbeam to warm you,
A moonbeam to charm you,
A sheltering Angel, so nothing can harm you,
Laughter to cheer you,
Faithful friends near you,
and whenever you pray, Heaven to hear you."
With my love and best wishes
Lucy.