Celebrating May

 Many people are much more motivated than my good self and leave their beds early on May morn to welcome the rays of the sun...I am afraid I am not one of those folks and remain firmly wedded to my bed. These days I'm big enough and ugly enough to realise that it's perfectly acceptable for me, as a solitary Druid, to celebrate in whichever way I choose. Doing it my way meant that I was in church for 11am...yes you read that right. As ever all is not what it seems.

The town's local morris side are called The Broadwood Men and are named after Lucy Broadwood who lived in the local village of Rusper and collected many of the folk songs we have today. Another relation, Captain Broadwood, was one of their founders in January 1972. The morris side hold a short service in the church every May day and lay a wreath upon Lucy's memorial in the church. This is followed by a rather uplifting rendition of the  Helston's  song 'Hal an Tow' complete with the vicar standing up in the pulpit with a massive roll of paper upon which he's drawn comical illustrations for each verse which he unfurls in time with the music. It's all topped off with a dance by the men in the aisle and then more dancing in the churchyard before the pub crawl begins. Other than a couple of years ago when I struck lucky and the 1st May was a bank holiday I've always been unable to go as I was working, but now that I'm a free agent we were able to attend with our fellow dancing pal Chrissie. The local school children are there and they seem to love it...especially when the naughty dragon roars at them from within the contents of his special bag. He's not allowed out for fear of the havoc he might wreak. We did follow the jollifications to the pub across for the road because a pint of local ale was just the ticket to finish off a lovely morning.

This is a rather lovely rendition of Hal an Tow by Damh the Bard if you're unfamiliar with it.

As you might expect, I can't resist a Morris jig celebration of my own and we joined Mythago for the annual Sweeps festival in Rochester. It's the furthest we have been in weeks and the first time out of West Sussex bar medical stuff since before the op. I usually take a few photos, but I managed to leave my phone at home so those I did snaffle were later in the day once we were done. Usually we'd do the full day, but we had arranged to cut our time short to ensure that David didn't get too tired. It's an incredible day, but very busy and can get a bit lairy in the latter stages. The cathedral cafe down in the crypt is always calm and not somewhere that many think to go so it comes as a welcome relief after all the excitement. After a restorative cuppa we made good use of our extra slice of time and trundled five miles up the road to pay homage to some old stones up on the brow of Bluebell Hill. This is Kit's Coty and it's the remains of what once would have been a magnificent Neolithic long barrow. To put it in perspective this predates Stonehenge. Whoever was deemed to be important enough for such a sending off to the Summerlands certainly had an amazing view up there. We had it to ourselves...just us, the wildflowers and the wind and this is where I silently and privately celebrated my own Beltane.

Arilx