Spring Has Sprung

 

The Vernal/Spring Equinox is today, the moment with equal hours of daylight and darkness, so whether you think Spring starts on the 1st of March or at the Equinox, either way..............it's definitely here.

Spring has sprung

The grass has riz

I wonder where the birdie is? 

The birdie is upon the wing,

No, that's absurd

The wing is on the little bird

This is the segment from the wheel of the year for Spring from my book 'Ceremonies of the Seasons'.

 The day was once known as Ostara, the Pagan festival celebrating Eostre, Saxon or Germanic Goddess of Spring. There is a story that Eostre found a wounded bird and to save it's life she turned it into a hare, but even though the bird looked like a hare it was still able to lay eggs. As a thank you to the goddess the hare decorated the eggs and gave them to her as gifts. Eostre was often depicted as having a hare's head on a human body. 

The word Vernal comes from the Latin vernare meaning To Bloom

(Resorting to repeating blog posts from past years!)

Horse Chestnut

 After cutting out this page below from last years Folklore Diary for my scrapbook I decided to do some 'Following a tree' posts through 2026.

Horse Chestnut trees (Aesculus hippocastanum). Were introduced to Britain in the late C16 and native to the Balkan States, they can grow to over 120 feet tall. They were often used for ornamental avenues of trees in parkland.

It says

 "in folklore the horse chestnut is associated with bringing wealth and carrying conkers in your pocket would ensure you will always have money. The beautiful large flowers on a may time horse chestnut tree were known as 'Mary's candles' due to the Catholic association of the Month of May and Mary, Jesus' mother. The tree's name may derive from the base of a plucked leaf looking like a hoof or horseshoe shape."

The only Horse Chestnut I know of locally is in the car park of our village health centre where doctors and pharmacy serving this and several other villages  are based. I still have lots of conkers from this tree on my window sills - and no spiders all winter.

The older Horse Chestnut in February

And there's a ditch between the edge of the car park and the tree so I couldn't get close enough for photos of the trunk.

Then I remembered there's a young Horse Chestnut on the playing field of the village hall where we do the Keep Moving Group, much easier to get to. 

Below is the young Horse Chestnut tree in March 

The trunk of the young Horse Chestnut, the bark is grey brown and scaly.

A not very good close up of one of the 'sticky' buds - I need to take my proper camera

I'll follow this tree through 2026, taking pictures around the middle of each month.....remind me!

Back Tomorrow

Resorting to a Photo of Shopping...

Thanks everyone for comments yesterday. .....the boring boot-sale photo and today because I'm short of blogging topics, I'm resorting to a picture of shopping .......another boring topic! but curiously fascinating to so many people - including me although...................

I looked at 2 minutes of a frugal youtuber unloading her frugal shopping before deciding that I'd seen enough of someone saying she was frugal while buying things that aren't (in my opinion anyway!) Of course they might be vital to her existence, even coca cola!

I don't know who the youtuber was as I couldn't find it again. I really shouldn't watch even 2 minutes of these as mostly they make me cross!

My shopping ...............

Everything from Aldi again. Vegetables were salad leaves, purple sprouting broccoli, celery, mini potatoes(British from Norfolk - well done Aldi), baby plum tomatoes. Fruit in season British apples and pears . Into the fridge -  4 pints milk,  extra mature cheddar, Shropshire blue and 'salad' cheese (aka feta). For the freezer 2 packs of sweet potato fries, petit pois peas and fish in batter. For the store cupboard - wholemeal bread flour, cashews, multi grain crackers, ground coffee, jar of olives and stock cubes. Total spend £30.89.

............with no coca-cola!

Sorry folks, seems I'm getting cranky and boring!