April Country Ways and Country Days

 This bit below was written in my April 1st post of  2019

There are often a few warm days at the end of March or beginning of April which brings the Blackthorn into flower then the weather will often turn colder which is called The Blackthorn Winter. According to forecasts that looks very likely for this year. We had Friday and Saturday with temperatures up to 17℃ and this week coming will be much colder with frosts at night.

 So three years later it's much the same.................a week of warmer weather until the 29th March  and then much colder with frosts at night and even sleet and snow forecast for parts of the country.

The saying that March borrows days from April usually means that weather-wise the last few days of March and the first days of April are often the same.

March borrows of April

Three days and they are ill;

April borrows of March again

Three days of wind and rain. 

My Illustration for April is again from the book 'A Sparrow's Life as Sweet as Ours' by Carrie Akroyd.

The male blackbird is one of our most recognisable birds, there was a decline in numbers through the latter part of the C20 but since the beginning of this century numbers have increased again.

In Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream, Bottom says

 The Ousel-cock, so black of hue, with orange tawny beak.

because until the C17 blackbirds were just one of the birds of the ousel family, they didn't have their own name. 

Most of the old weather sayings seem to prefer a wet April

A dry April

Not the farmer's will

April wet

is what we should get 

 

April wet, good wheat

 

April has thirty days, and if it rained on thirty-one,

no harm would be done.

 

I'm just hoping for a dry Easter for the family visit and Easter Egg hunt around the garden.

Back Tomorrow

Sue