BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)

Subject: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 10:15 AM

There was an article in the newspapers today about May blossom coming out early this year; is this due to glabal warming etc. What a load of cods wallop. May is called 'May' because it blossoms about the end of April and the beginning of May; hence using it on May Day celebrations.

Hawthorn

May blossom symbolises female fertility, with its creamy/ white, fragrant flowers. Hawthorn blossom was worn during Beltane celebrations, especially by the May Queen. It is believed to be a potent magical plant and it is considered unlucky to bring the blossom inside the house, apart from on May eve.

Last year it was late, this year it's a few days early. So what's new?

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 10:32 AM

We've got soe lovely May round here. Had a sprig on the alter for Full Moon

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 10:47 AM

So did we, and a chaplet of May for the Maiden.

We make a point of decorating the altar with May for Beal Tain.

Blessed |Be, and be Blessed, all.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 10:59 AM

I hope your altar isn't inside cos that's supposed to be bad luck to bring it indoors!

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Sooz
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 12:54 PM

The blackthorn is out here but there is no sign of may blossom yet.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Cats
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 01:23 PM

Loads of May out here but there again we're only about 20 miles from Mrs Lemon. We bring it in on May morning before heading off to Padstow.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: mouldy
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:29 PM

There's no sign of it in my part of Yorkshire yet.

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 04:51 PM

It's possible your roving reporters have got the wrong sort of blossom. The blackthorn is similar to hawthorne in flower but always blooms before the leaves come. If the bushes they inspected had both leaf and blossom, then it's probable it is hawthorne or may.

If it is may, it's not that early. I've known may blossom in mid April before, 30 years ago before Global Warming was invented.

I've not been driving out recently so I haven't seen any hawthorne, but I know for certain that the blackthorn here has already blossomed, bloomed and blown - the leaves are showing now.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: nutty
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 05:09 PM

This year everything's early in this part of the world (UK - North east coast). The May has been in flower since the end of March.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 06:43 PM

Yes Liz, i think they have got it wrong. Another media ploy to make us believe it's global warming. It's the black thorn they are looking at not the hawthorn.   Check again, Nutty.

Cats: ...20 miles from Mrs Lemon... where are you? More's to the point, do I know you?

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: bobad
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 06:53 PM

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Willie The Shake

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 07:26 PM

That's lovely. Good poet was Willie!

Just thought i'd throw this into the circle...

blackthorn blossom

hawthorn blossom

Similar but easily mistaken; there are no leaves on the blackthorn

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: mouldy
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 05:03 AM

Round part of the perimeter of Eggborough power station is a hawthorn hedge which I always look on as a sign of spring on its way, as it starts coming into leaf before all the other hedgerows around it. That has plenty of leaf at the moment, but as of 2 days ago, when I last looked, no blossom. However, the weather seems to have taken a bit of an upturn today...

The blackthorn has been out for ages, and still is.
The cold weather of late doesn't seem to have stopped the rape seed, though.

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: theleveller
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 08:19 AM

"Round part of the perimeter of Eggborough power station is a hawthorn hedge .... but as of 2 days ago, when I last looked, no blossom."

Mouldy, I live the other side of Drax and same thing. My apple trees were in full bloom this time last year but still no sign this year. So much for power stations causing global warming. Brrrrr. (Maybe the two new wind turbines over the road are acting like fans and cooling things down!)

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 02:45 PM

My mum told me today that while the Blackthorn is in bloom there will be cold winds until the May blossom comes out at the beginning of May. Maybe (?) that's why we have this old saying and she's been around for 85 May Days!

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 03:40 PM

No May blossom round Stoke that I have seen, though loads of blackthorn as already mentionedTwenty years ago it was always after May 1 in Cheshire and Lancashire as far as I recall, but it has drifted to pre-May Day recently. Now the weather has warmed up so dramatically in the last couple of days, I would expect my tree here in Stoke to flower soon. The wild garlic has just kicked in, so the May should be not far beind. And whatever you do, as someone said earlier, DON'T BRING IT INDOORS. This is for outdoor celebrations only.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 04:36 PM

Hi Greg, The wild garlic is in full swing here, just about to burst into flower. Can you use the leaves in cooking? I must look it up. I fancy folling some vegetable rice in them. mmmmmm....

Lots of damson, cherry, and blackthorn but no May yet.

I'm quite sure now that the media have got it wrong.

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: vectis
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 06:15 PM

Down here on the south coast the may is well budded out but no blossom as yet. The A23/M23 normally has may blossom in its verges by about now because they are so sunny and the blacktop on the road acts like a heated brick and warms the air at the roadside.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 06:18 PM

I just want a Mayhaw tree so I can make jelly!!!!! I swear, it's even BETTER than elder!

I planted one but it wasn't anywhere near a 'tree' when it arrived...about the size of a toothpick. It died.

Waaaaahhhh! And my oak is trying to die too.....

But, hey, the green ash and the rowan are doing great!

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 04:21 PM

I made the same mistake last week but daughter #1 (by 10 minutes) pointed it out. Blackthorn blossom out in plenty in south Lakeland last weekend.

D.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 06 May 08 - 10:42 AM

May blossom is just in bud here in North Herefordshire.

any advance on that? Did anyone have any May blossom on May Day?

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Sooz
Date: 06 May 08 - 12:36 PM

I've noticed the first May blossom here in Lincolnshire today. The buds were still tight at the weekend. The blackthorn blossom is now over but we have made a mental note of the best bits so we can look for the sloes in the autumn.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: mouldy
Date: 06 May 08 - 03:51 PM

Yep, it's budding here in yorkshire too.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 May 08 - 04:28 PM

Remember that modern Mayday has been out with old Mayday by 12 days since the adoption of the Grehorian calendar in 1752 (see other threads regarding Christmas Day & Old Christmas Day) so come the Beltane full moon on May 20th, the blossom will be well & truly out and our clouts will be well and truly cast!

It's coming here on the Fylde, slowly but surely...

Meanwhile, a Modern Witch's May Eve Song from the pen of Dancing Jim Wetherspoon.

On the even of Walpergis, when I get those pagan urges,
then I mount my bonny besom, and above the moonlit trees zoom,
gaily bound, as is my habit, for the nearest Witches Sabbat,
there to dance, to leap, to caper, to the Jew's Trump and the tabor;
while the Beltane bonefire blazes and the high priestess lewdly gazes
from the centre of the circle in her chasuble of purple
crying: Great One I invoke thee, known as Mahew, known as Loki
known as Lugh, as Herne, as Robin - though my poor head will be throbbing,
with the herbs, the smoke, the clamour, as we dance our wild weird glamour;
till the fire is dimly glowing, and a distant cock is crowing,
and the dawn puts forth her thin glow - well, it makes a change from Bingo...

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: mouldy
Date: 07 May 08 - 02:05 PM

It's starting to blossom around our village now.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:13 PM

Yep we have some small patches of blossom on the hedges now, today,

Hooray

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Apr 17 - 04:59 PM

When this thread was started, the month was April, as it is now.

I'm curious to know if the observations in this thread are still close to what you are experiencing this spring.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 23 Apr 17 - 02:19 AM

Just had a look in the field behind the house, north Norfolk.

Blackthorn has been and pretty much gone. Hawthorne is yet to blossom.

Lots of apple and some plum/greengage/damson blossom round the back.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Apr 17 - 02:42 AM

Around here on the West Coast of Ireland 'May Blossom' refers to the yellow gorse that is at present displaying wildly in our (overlarge) garden.
Locals told us how, when they were young, they would carry armfuls of it into the house and hang it on the walls to ensure good luck for the coming year.
Whitethorn also falls under this description.
Not long after we moved here twenty years ago, the Local authorities began constructing a bye-pass around our County Town, Ennis - one of the obstacles was a 'Fairy Thorn', which they proposed to uproot
A local, somewhat eccentric storyteller mounted a campaign to save the bush and the (much disputed) story is that the Council finally agreed to divert the road around the bush at enormous cost.
It survived, despite a vicious attack from mindless vandals, and if you peer over the edge of the road as yo drive past you can still catch a brief glimpse of it.
Things like this make living around her the joy it can be (despite the 60mph fog in winter)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Apr 17 - 03:00 AM

best bits so we can look for the sloes in the autumn

make sloe gin, but take my advice - don't bother with sloe jam, it tastes like raw sloes. If you want a jar I still have some.
Maybe the flesh after the gin is decantered would be OK but I never took that route.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 Apr 17 - 04:15 AM

Hawthorn leaves are out (in spite of the fact that it was minus 3 degrees last Tuesday night!) but no blossom yet.

My mother wouldn't allow us to bring May blossom into the house. She said it would curse us and bring bad luck. Now I'm older, I suspect she just didn't want the petals shedding all over the floor!

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Apr 17 - 05:20 AM

Same here in Yorkshire. Blackthorn has flowered. Plenty of cherry and apple blossom about. But no flowers on the Hawthorne yet so I shall be casting no clouts!

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 Apr 17 - 01:04 PM

I'm not casting any clouts either Dave. The wind here in Norfolk is blooming chilly!

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Apr 17 - 06:10 PM

In this country blackthorn seems to bloom in two flushes. In the Westcountry blackthorn can be in flower in February. But then there's a second flush starting in early April. There's a suspicion among us botanists that the early flowering ones are a distinct race which is not native to the UK. The sloes are just as good. A good tip is to put the sloes in the freezer for a night or two before making the sloe gin. Saves having to prick them. One bottle of gin, twelve ounces of sloes, six ounces of sugar. A big mistake is to panic and pick the sloes too early for fear of someone else getting them first. Sloes picked in September are useless. Mid-October is good. The sloe gin will be quaffable by Christmas but far better if kept until next year. Damsons are as good or even better than sloes, and you can use vodka instead of gin with either. You won't be able to tell the difference.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 05:47 PM

I was crossing the midlands of Ireland and over to north Clare, and there was lots of may blossom - hawthorn - out both on the M6 and in the part of Clare where I was staying, up near Galway.
A friend of mine has a story about going collecting flowers in spring with her little sister - her sister collected lots of hawthorn blossom, and she, being the big girl, swapped posies with her. She came in the door of the house and her grandmother, seeing what she was holding, got her by the scruff of her neck and ran her out of the house. Her sister was killed on the road later that day.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 06:03 PM

Thompson, is that an Irish superstition about not bringing hawthorn blossom into the house? My mother was from Cork, and I'm wondering if it's exclusive to Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 06:12 PM

It's certainly Irish, I don't know if it's exclusively Irish. If you bring it in, someone dies.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 06:21 PM

I don't think I've head of that one. Asked my mother (Shropshire born) and to her, snowdrops seem to have been a plant people would not bring in for bad luck.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 03:36 AM

My mother wouldn't ever allow us to open an umbrella in the house either (bad luck)

. And if there was a thunderstorm, all knives and scissors had to be hidden away in the drawer. She even sometimes turned the mirror to the wall. All this was to avoid 'attracting the lightning'!

Spilt salt had to be dealt with by throwing a pinch of it over the left shoulder, because the Devil would be lurking there.

And if one sees one solitary magpie, one spits (ugh) as it's a harbinger of doom.

My father spent a lot of his time casting his eyes skywards in despair!

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Will Fly
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 06:16 AM

As usual for this time of the year, the weather along the Sussex coast has been a mixture of very warm and very cold. Currently a brilliant but cold day - 10C - today. There's always one really cold snap in April, just before spring starts in earnest. I recall my first day of being a guide at the windmill ("Jill") on Clayton Hill in 2007 - deep snow - and that was the first weekend in April!

My long-departed farm worker friend, Jack Hooker, who'd spent all his life working in the countryside in Kent and Sussex, remarked to me: "Watch the blackthorn, because blackthorn flowers like cold weather and, as long as they're out, the cold weather stays with us."

That was forty years ago - and his advice is still good today. The blackthorn's been out for about 2-3 weeks down here and, with a bit of luck, will be gone in about a weeks's time. I say "luck" - wrong word, really, because the masses of blackthorn we get round our village make great photos!

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 08:26 AM

Cold snaps in spring are called blackthorn winters.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Will Fly
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 10:17 AM

"The Blackthorn Snap" could be a good title for a ceilidh dance.

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 02:26 PM

May could be out on June the 8th

Om sorry , wrong thread...

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: May Day-May Blossom (UK)
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 08:39 PM

refresh