Days to remember in January 2024 - 2

 

Days to remember in January 2024 - 2

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Plough Sunday is the Sunday closest to the 5^th day of January and this year will be on 7^th January. It marks the beginning of the agricultural year, when the land is being prepared for sowing, and is a way to applaud the work of farmers. Notable services are held in Chichester and Exeter Cathedrals, Sherborne Abbey, in Dorset and Hedenham Church, in Norfolk. It is common for a ploughshare to be taken into the service and for farmers to attend with their tractors.

January 7^th is St Distaff’s Day, though there is no Saint named Distaff. It was traditionally the day people returned to work after Christmas. It is also known as Roc Day and occurs the day after the Feast of the Epiphany, on 6^th January.  The distaff or roc is a tool used in spinning, designed to hold unspun fibres, preventing them from tangling. It was the mediaeval symbol of women’s work, and women of high or low estate would be occupied in spinning.

For men, Plough Monday is the traditional return to work for agricultural labourers. It is the Monday following the Epiphany and is 8^th January in 2024.  

 

Straw Bear Day is celebrated in the Fenland area of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk on the first Monday following Twelfth Night. In Whittlesea, Cambridgeshire, this year it will take place on three days in January, 12^th, 13^th and 14^th. The Straw Bear is a man covered completely in straw who is led from house to house to dance to bring about a good harvest. On the final day the Straw Bear is burnt, though without the man inside it! The Straw Bear Festival is an opportunity to dress up and have fun, while raising money for charity.

 

 

Rain

Baby Bertie in the rain, 2011

 

The rain is raining all around,

It falls on field and tree,

It rains on the umbrellas here,

And on the ships at sea.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894)

It has rained excessively, bringing misery and chaos to travel and business. So many areas have been severely flooded and many people face a difficult beginning to a new year.

It is dreary, on a dull, rainy day, to put away the bright ornaments of Christmas.  Were the sun to shine, the task would feel less glum as the angels, the glass baubles, the silver bells, the ropes of red beads are packed away. My pretty tree has stood for a month or more, but now it must be undressed and stored until needed once again, many months from now. The strings of lights which have shone so gaily, giving colour on cold, dark mornings are now extinguished. They were a source of pleasure and hope during Christmas week as we succumbed to Covid, a feast for the eyes even as we lacked appetite for food.

Now we look forward as the days lengthen, new ventures beckoning to cheer our jaded souls and prove, once more, that the earth keeps spinning, that life goes on. The pyracantha berries are all gone, thousands of them, stripped by hungry birds, and already and for some time, spring shoots reach up to the sky. Nothing deters these fragile plants. They may be battered by rain and wind, frozen with frost and snow, but they survive, brave harbingers of Spring.

Among the trees, the blue tits dash from branch to branch, stopping to pick small insects from the undersides of leaves and crevices in the bark, joined by others of their kin, the great tits and the coal tits. A small flock of long-tailed tits darts here and there and blackbirds and robins, dunnocks and elusive wrens make their preparations for nesting and breeding.

As Percy Bysshe Shelley expressed it, in the last line of the last stanza of ‘Ode to the West Wind’, ‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’

Gilbert, one year on . . .

 

Gilbert, one year on . . .

Baby Gilbert - first night in his new home, relieved to see a big dog to rest his chin on

We took the dogs out for a charge about yesterday and were gone some while. Jellicoe and Herschel were left alone and were pleased to see us when we arrived home, miaouing at the door as we came in. Gilbert availed himself of the chair and Herschel promptly sat on him.

 Gilbert has been with us now for a year. He is a lovely boy with a great sense of humour and we are very privileged to have him in our lives.

How small he was when he arrived and how big he is now!

Days to remember in January 2024

 

Days to remember in January 2024

Tactile street sign at Albert Street and Alice Street, Brisbane

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 January 4^th is World Braille Day.

Louis Braille was born on January 4^th, 1809, in Coupvray, France. Until he was three he had perfect sight. He was accidentally blinded in one eye in his father’s harness making shop by a stitching awl, a sharp-pointed instrument used to punch holes in heavy materials like leather and canvas. An infection set in in the damaged eye and spread to his other eye, causing total blindness.

When he was a student at the National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris, formerly the Royal Institute, one of the first schools in the world for blind children, he used and improved systems of raised letters designed by Valentin Haüy and raised dots by Charles Barbier. Louis Braille’s system, completed in 1824 when he was 15,  simplified the code, using six dots in different permutations to represent the letters of the alphabet.

Although his fellow students applauded Braille’s work the system was not adopted until two years after his death. Haüy’s successor was afraid that its implementation would negate the need for sighted teachers. Now, braille is used throughout the world and continues to develop and be adapted to modern technology.

There is more information here and here.

New desk diary

 

New desk diary

Tulips adorn the cover of my 2024 diary.

There were tulips on the 2023 diary, too.

I don’t know why I have a desk diary rather than a smaller pocket diary. I haven't even got a desk! I suppose it stems from my working days when important dates were filled in at the beginning of the academic year and added to as the terms wore on.

Anyway, I like space to write in and like to pretend that I am organised. I haven’t yet ‘gone through’ the 2024 diary, writing in birthdays and anniversaries. It’s not a task I enjoy very much. Perhaps it’s something to do with my dislike  of making mistakes and maybe to alleviate that I should write in pencil. When I was a teenager, it took me ages to write a letter because I had to keep starting again after I’d made a mistake. Quite ridiculous!

It is now January 2^nd and I have yet to write in my journal. I’d better get a move on before I forget all the exciting things I’ve done so far this year. 

The blank page stares, challenging me to mark its pristine surface.

It’s grey and dreary and very windy today. We drew back the curtains earlier to let in what little light there was – it gets quite depressing to have the world shut out all the time and we were rewarded by the antics of the blue tits pursuing each other across the garden.

Barry saw a rat cross the patio a couple of days ago and Herschel and Jellicoe have been absorbed by activity out there. The patio lies one step below the level of the sitting room and so they sit at the patio doors and gaze down, tails twitching, ears pricked, observing the comings and goings of wild rodents. Roxy and Gilbert have become interested in specific areas of the patio, as well, pushing their snuffling noses between the rustling, dead stems of asters. We hadn’t seen rats for a very long time until recently and, while each creature deserves its space in the universe, we don’t want to oversee a rise in the population.

Maybe the sun will shine tomorrow. Maybe the gale we’re promised will not materialise. Maybe – a wonderful word, full of promise.

Leap Year 2024

 

Leap Year 2024

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Happy New Year!

2024 is a leap year, a year with an extra day to balance the calendar year with the solar or tropical year. An astronomical year lasts slightly less than 365 and one quarter days. Without an adjustment every four years our calendar would soon become out of synchronisation with the tropical year; in four years, it would be out by about one day and in 100 years it would be out by approximately 25 days.

Julius Caesar introduced the leap year in 45 BC. The Julian calendar ruled that any year number divisible by 4 would be a leap year but this resulted in many leap years. Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582 to regulate this. The Julian calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. It is still used in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church as well as in Oriental Orthodoxy and by the Berbers in parts of North Africa.

Leap years occur every four years except for years that are divisible by 100 but not 400. 1900 was not a leap year, but 2000 was. For most of us, at least until 2100, if the last two numbers are divisible by 4, the year is a leap year.

The summer Olympics are held every four years, usually in a leap year. The 2020 Olympics were postponed for a year because of Covid. This year, Paris is hosting the summer Olympics from 26^th July to 11^th August. 

The opening ceremony is usually entertaining though sometimes needs to be interpreted by the commentators, as the dance/drama sequences can be quite mystifying. I wonder why, when all the nations of the world can put aside their differences for two weeks to participate, such willingness to cooperate cannot translate to daily life. Of course, the athletes are competing for medals, not attempting to annex other people's lands. The spirit of apparent goodwill does not last. Consider the 1936 Olympics in Germany, which so incensed Hitler. 

What state will our world be in by the summer of 2024?

Traditional pursuits in January in UK

 

Traditional pursuits in January in UK

First-footing is practised in the Isle of Man, Scotland and Northern England on New Year’s Day and may take place immediately after midnight on New Year’s Eve. The first foot is the first person to enter the house on New Year’s Day and is the bringer of good luck.

Ideally, he should be tall and dark and should not have been in the house when the bells strike midnight. He may step out before the chimes and come back in or he may be a completely new visitor.

Traditionally, the first-footer brought a gift of coal to symbolise warmth for the household.  In modern times, the bearer might bring whisky and shortbread, warming in a different manner. Fair-haired men were thought to be unlucky first-footers perhaps because of their association with blond Viking invaders of yore. Women had no place in the proceedings, being thought to presage ill fortune.