Yesterday Was Plough Sunday and Today is.........

 ...........Plough Monday and apologies again as this is yet another repeated subject - as I said the other day - there's a shortage of things to write about in January!

The first Monday after Twelfth Night was the day the agricultural year started, but before they began  their hard work, the plough men and boys took the opportunity to have a bit of fun by dressing up, blacking up, and processing around the village to perform a plough play and hopefully be given some money.  The plough was often blessed in the church on the Sunday before which became Plough Sunday.

Turn out for plough Monday

Up, fellows now

Buckle the horses

And follow the plough. 

A corn dolly, made from the last stalks of the previous harvest would have been placed in the first furrow made on Plough Monday and turned into the earth - an offering to the goddess of the corn in hope for a good years growing ahead.

It was this time last year that I discovered that the tradition of blessing the plough carries on here at the village church. Followed by Morris Dancers and a procession. I walked up the road to see the procession but they were late coming out of the church and it was too cold to hang around.

Not so cold this year so I tried again and left it a bit later and still had to walk up and down and around for 15 minutes before at last they appeared out of the church.

The procession went around the village ending up outside the pub where the Morris side danced although by then I was home because I wanted to make a cheese and vegetable quiche for this weeks meals. Have to get my priorities right!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Not Out of The House and Out of the House

I've not been out much this week as, like so many other people,  I had a return of the lurgy that struck before Christmas. Just hope I  haven't passed it back to the two nearest Grandchildren when I went to look after them for a couple of hours. It's just sore throat and cough and I don't feel too bad and have been sleeping OK, so haven't been moaning out loud! 

My second trip was out for shopping and I took 2 big bags of bits to the charity shop, mainly  towels, books and 4 cups and saucers that haven't been used for years. The RSPCA  charity shop were pleased with my old towels - she said they sell out so quickly for dog towels, especially at this time of the year. My first random purchase of the year was from Aldi's middle aisle - it's their fitness week and they had a pack of two 1kg dumb bell weights for under a fiver. The first people who ran the exercise group brought weights with them but the people running it now don't. I tried a bottle of water but it's not really heavy enough or the right shape. 

There was yet another funeral over the road in the graveyard this week, that's the fourth since the Autumn. There was only one in the first year I was here and then I heard of another person with cancer in the close  family (not my children and hopefully caught early enough)..... makes you think doesn't it. I find it so difficult to hear about people having cancer now - I feel selfish but part of me had enough of cancer and illness with Colin. That sounds terrible but it's hard to cope. I've said before that I feel I've put a hard shell around myself to stop me being hurt anymore.

I mentioned during the week that one bit of trellis came down when the post rotted - well, with one bit down the remaining two, (which were already propped up) standing at right angles to the first had nothing to hold them up and I had to pull them over and take their rotting posts out of the ground before they fell on the little Minarette Apple Trees. Sadly this meant cutting  down lots of Winter Jasmine. The garden looks a bit open and bare without the trellising, not sure what to do now as both the Fig and the 3 Minarettes were tied to the trellis.

Before rotting posts and collapsed trellising

After trellis collapse. My wire netting frames and a bit of the trellis are now covering my veg beds to put off next door neighbours cat. She's a lovely cat but cat poo in the garden is revolting.

This week I'm grateful for.......

• My new outside tap out the front of the house to use when finally getting around to washing the car - about time - it was filthy.
• Getting the 2022 paperwork sorted and either thrown out or filed away.
• Fast doctor and hospital response for a relative

The weather forecast for the weekend is horrible - wet and windy but at least there's still no sign of snow- thank goodness.

Back Monday

Sue 

Wassailing Again

Apologies as I've probably mentioned this nearly every year (shortage of ideas for blog posts every January!)

On Twelfth night in the past there were two distinct types of Wassailing. The first was moving door to door around the village singing and carrying a wassailing bowl and the second was a ceremony taking place in orchards, blessing the trees for a good crop next year.

 Wassail  (From the Norse Waes Hael") means "be healthy" and as farm workers were often paid in cider during the harvest it was important the trees were healthy and produced plenty of fruit......... at one time there were 400 varieties of cider apples and an orchard on every farm with apple trees in every cottage garden.

Around the village they would sing this old traditional song which I've always known, from somewhere...primary school perhaps

Here we come a wassailing among the leaves so green

Here we come a wassailing so fair to be seen

Love and Joy come to you and to you a wassail too

And may God bless you and send you a Happy New Year

And God send you a Happy New Year

God Bless the master of this house and Bless the mistress too,

And all the little children that round the table go,

Love and Joy come to you and to you a wassail too

And may God bless you and send you a Happy New Year

And God send you a Happy New Year

And in the orchards this poem would be chanted while drums were banged, rifles fired through the tree branches, bread soaked in cider laid on the branches of the oldest tree and cider poured on the roots.

Old apple tree we wassail thee
And hoping thou will bear
For the Lord doth know where we shall be
‘Til apples come another year

For to bear well and to bloom well
So merry let us be
Let every man take off his hat
And shout to the old apple tree

Old apple tree we wassail thee
And hoping thou will bear
Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full
And a little heap under the stair

Hip! Hip! Hooray!

Wassailing the apple trees is still happening in parts of the country - specially in the cider orchards of Somerset and Herefordshire and now Morris Dancing sides or Community Orchard Groups have got the tradition re-started in many places. I only know of one in Suffolk, at a country pub with the Old Glory Molly Dancers performing, but a bit too far away for a visit.

This is a book I found a few years ago at a boot sale written by the same people as my Ogham Tree Alphabet book. It's a fascinating look back at traditions - old and new. 

It's also a Full Moon tonight, January full moon is called the  Wolf Moon and is a micro-moon, which is the opposite of a super moon, so the moon will appear smaller than usual at it's furthest point from the earth.

I only need to step across the patio and out onto the lawn to do the Wassailing tonight. Then it's up to nature to do the rest.

Back Tomorrow

Sue