The Maybe Maypole

Well it wasn’t exactly May Day, that being the first of May, but today was the May bank holiday, and the plan was to take the kids to Jubilee Park (the place that featured in my Halloween post, obviously a park for all seasons) to watch some local school children dancing around the Maypole. I could go on here about the link with the Celtic pagan festival of Beltane, the re-enactment of old folk traditions and customs concerning the Green Man and the rites of Summer etc, but I will leave that to more informative blogs. It doesn’t feel right with a mouthful of candy floss. I will just show you a few photographs of the occasion instead.

It was just a normal, leisurely, bank holiday afternoon. Sat in the park. Being approached by some bearded men with feathers in their hats and bells on their toes.

The band in the bandstand struck up. Where else would you expect to find a band, except in a bandstand? Perhaps jumping on a bandwagon?

This guy here offered his drumstick to my children, to hit the drum with as hard as they could. Neither of them would do it. I couldn’t believe it-you want to hear the racket that they make at home. Yet when given the opportunity they play the shy card.

A processional file started following The Green Man around the park. The procession went anti-clockwise, widdershins, for those of you who care about those sort of things.

 

Up close to the Green Man, my little boy was afraid of the ‘walking tree thing!’ and kept an out-of-reach-of-branch-arms distance.

It was a scary experience all round for him. He earlier got half way up the steps of the Edgar Wood-designed Exedra (admit it-you thought that they were just steps, didn’t you?) when the church bells started ringing out and he abruptly turned and ran straight back down.

 

 

 

The Green Man was demonstrating, with the help of a narrator and some young dancing children, how he had slept through the Winter months before awakening from his dormancy in the Spring, but being at the back of the crowd my children couldn’t see and were getting restless. So we decided to leave and seek out a real park that had swings and slides and things.

On the way I showed them this anchor, which is attached to the outer wall of Middleton Library, that once belonged to the Norwegian brigantine Sirene that ran aground in Blackpool in 1892. Any excuse to share a bit of history, their interest waned when they learnt that there were no pirates involved. I should have just lied for entertainment purposes.

Through one of the old, cobbled town passageways, we left behind the traces of a diluted, earlier tradition to emerge blinking into the concrete jungle of twenty first century Middleton life.

Still no sign of a Maypole. Next month we’ll search for Juniper berries.

The Creeping Tide

There was no denying it. We had reached that time of the year when the endless struggle between man and nature resumes. From a brief respite, the conflict soon begins again in earnest.

By man and nature, I refer to myself and the garden. I try to put it off as long as I can. My refuge is the autumn that cuts back and halts the endless advance. My kick back time is the winter months that sweep in with a withering and unyielding wind.

But fearfully I watch for any sign of spring. More fearfully, my wife watches for me. She will puncture casual conversation with observational remarks about the grass beginning to grow, the shoots beginning to show. At this point I can still resist, for these are just gradual beginnings. The growth is slow. The change barely registers.

But nature, with its annoyingly natural order of things, begins to speed up.

The remarks come more frequently-the weeds that are sprouting through every concrete crack, those dastardly dandelions that carpet the lawn.

I remark on the beauty of these yellow flowers- the first to give the garden colour this year.

An ominous silence.

Spring begins to herald summer, and the comments become more caustic. The solar lights don’t come on at night because they sit in the shade of the grass. When the kids go out to play we will have to tie a length of rope around their waists so we don’t lose them in the wilderness. They are too young to be trusted with sharp implements such as the machetes they will need to beat a path to the front gate.

Things begin to build and gather pace.

Last year was bitter-sweet. It was the wettest year on record, summer was a washout. Picnic time was limited, but so also was my gardening opportunities. And, if there was ever the danger of a window of opportunity, I employed a bullet point presentation:

the health and safety aspect- you can’t use the lawnmower with wet grass you know, electricity and all that.

the aesthetics: trampling all over the garden after rainfall would soon reduce it to an unsightly mud heap

the sympathy appeal: my postman’s knees were playing up

the wildcard: you look beautiful darling

Somehow I made it to autumn, glorious autumn, in all its marvellous consistency. Let those leaves fall, this is a record-breaking rainfall year you know. It may look untidy, but soon it will be concealed by lovely snow.

But now this year, this weekend. I harbour a secret desire, and keep it close to my heart. It is that I plug in the lawn mower and it does not work. ( And the strimmer went in a skip the year before.)

But I knew that this was a long shot.

I couldn’t do the garden the week before as Jen was in work and I had nobody to watch the kids-yes this came clearly under bullet point no.1: health and safety.

But Jen would be here this weekend, so I would be free to take up the struggle.

To be honest, I wasn’t worried. Not only was this a weekend, it was a bank holiday weekend. An absolute banker when it comes to bad weather. I paid lip service while keeping an eye on the Sky Sports schedule for the next few days.

Then I opened the blinds on Saturday morning.

Blue sky.

I closed the blinds and opened them again-still blue sky. The dandelions shone gold in the sun. Cue a desperate suggestion that has hitherto never appeared on my bullet point list before:

why don’t we wait until the dandelions turn into sugars for the kids to blow?

Weak I know, but I was desperate.  But then, way out of left field, my wife suggested I could always do it tomorrow as this weather was forecast to last. I snatched her hand off. Sucker-did she not know that this was a bank holiday weekend? No way it would last. Result.

Sunday morning, and the old open blinds routine: blue sky. My heart sank. Resistance was futile, I knew it, the wife knew it, the garden knew it. And besides, the kids wanted to play out. My strategy was reluctantly drawn, the time of commencement agreed. And then-salvation came in the form of visiting family.

Kill the fatted calf. Caffeinate the cups. Let the conversation flow.

It was unimaginable that I would stay out toiling in the sun while we had visitors. That would be  just downright bad manners.  I drew the conversations out, retraced reminiscing steps over long-covered ground. I got through the day by distraction.

And then- today. I woke up this morning knowing that this would be my last stand. My only hope lay in the weather.

It was sunny. Unbelievably sunny. Not only on a bank holiday weekend, but this-the bank holiday day. On the heels of the worst year on record it was totally unexpected. In resignation I retrieved the mower from where it had hibernated for the last eight months in the shed with the spiders.

I plugged it in, giving the switch a quick squeeze with little hope. Yep- it worked.

The skies were unobscured by cloud. The gate stood firmly shut against visitors. One last check of my mobile- no one was  offering an escape route. The long grass danced in great swathes of joy. I turned to see my family at the window watching, my son clutching a football, my daughter all smiles, my wife dreaming of a rockery.

More white knuckled than green fingered, I always knew that I would have to start sometime, it was always a question of how long I could string it out for.  And once I did it would grow back faster than ever. Time to pick up the mantle and the secateurs.

How soon the seasons pass. Better get on with it.

Just for future reference, does anyone know a good raindance?