St Thomas's Day and The Winter Solstice

 

A page from the lovely book by Sophie Jackson 'A Medieval Christmas'

St Thomas was also known as Didymous and Doubting Thomas - one of the first apostles. Details of his life after his appearance in the gospels are uncertain . He is thought to have gone as a missionary to India and to have been martyred at Madras. His special day now is usually marked on July 3rd

There are two old sayings for this day.

Look at the weathercock at noon on St Thomas's Day and whichever way the wind blows from it will stay that way for the next lunar quarter

St Thomas grey, St Thomas grey

Longest night and shortest day 

In the past St. Thomas's  Day was a excuse for 'gooding', which involved  begging for food in return for a small bunch of greenery. In some places this was called 'Doleing'. The dole given was usually some flour for making bread with the wheat donated by a wealthy farmer and ground without charge by the miller.

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St Thomas by Rubens from around 1612

This is an old traditional saying about preparing for Christmas feasting

                                    On St Thomas the divine kill all turkeys, geese and swine.

The Winter Solstice for us today at 3.03pm. The word solstice means the day the sun stands still. 

After the Solstice the daylight hours are much the same for 3 days until at last they gradually begin to stretch towards spring.

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Day 19 and 20 of the Advent Coffee Calendar were both the same - Irish Cream Coffee. All the little sachets have had enough for two coffees which is good.

BiL had a spare hour yesterday afternoon and came over to use his big motor-mower on my grass and to cut down the huge buddleia a bit more than I can and to remove the flamingo tree that died over the summer. It made a good load in his trailer which would have taken me forever to fit into the garden waste bin.

The Strictly Come Dancing final yesterday evening was a lovely colourful watch although emotional with the last live appearance of Tess and Claudia. I think they will be glad to get their autumn and winter Saturdays back to themselves after all the years being out. 

I would have liked George to win but it didn't really matter.

The programme about the Great Winter Freeze of 1962/3 was good, I didn't realise about the smog in London being so bad right up to this date. 

Tonight there's a big circle in the RT around the final part of 'The War between Land and the Sea' - it's been a very clever drama.  Before that I'll probably watch the London International Horse Show and might re-watch - for the umpteenth time one of my favourite WWII films 'The Heroes of Telemark'. They don't make 'em like that anymore!