Spring is my favourite season in the northern hemisphere. I love being surrounded by the sprouting of new life, and the increasingly longer lighter days increases humans’ happy hormones. If we’d had a choice of seasons to be ‘locked down’ in, this would be it.

Now, most of you reading I suspect believe this is a Christian day? That Jesus rose from the dead today? Maybe he did. Who am I to judge your beliefs. However, I myself far prefer the facts that this is Eostre, a pagan festival from the old times. Coloured eggs and bunnies are ancient symbols that vastly pre-date Christianity. So I’m definitely okay with easter eggs, and I bought Kim a Peter Rabbit one 😉

So the her-story is that in AD 595, Pope Gregory sent a mission of 40 monks to England – with instructions to convert the pagan inhabitants to Christianity. On their first attempt, they were too afraid to venture all the way and turned back.

“… pagan Britons believed every plant, tree, spring, stream, rock, hill or animal had its own soul and its own guardian deity. Before a tree could be cut down, a stream dammed, a mountain crossed, a spring drunk from or an animal disturbed, the individual guardian spirit had first to be placated. Every aspect of the wind and the weather also had its own god or goddess”

Eostre and Easter. What are the origins of this spring festival?

Oh please, please, can we return to a time when we all felt like this about Mother Nature?

The monks were forced to return two years later, and ‘coerced’ the Anglo Saxons by maintaining the celebrations relatively unchanged- just changing their names a little and adding in a version of honouring Christ, or a Christian martyrs.

“Over several centuries, all the pagan days of weather prediction – at least 40 in the year – were given saints’ names, and the big feast days were converted to Christian festivals.”

” … one festival was so ancient and so deeply entrenched in the pagan psyche that, although it was to become the most important and defining event in the ecclesiastical calendar, the Church did not attempt to change its name – Easter.”

Eostre and Easter. What are the origins of this spring festival?

Fascinating aye? Well, I for one think so. Even more at the moment with all the previously unimaginable statistics from around the world. It makes far more sense to me to be looking to nature for the answers …

Staying Inside

It’s been another relaxed day on board Areandare. We got up very late, after not retiring till the early hours after our brazier cooked chips and chatting around the fire. I even went on a ‘House Party’ with some ‘old’ midwifery colleagues around the country. I’ve been resisting downloading the App but decided connecting with people I haven’t seen for years was worth the risk.

Barry’s been pottering in the back cabin, completing the new desk for Kim’s ‘office’, which will eventually transform into mine if it’s ever safe enough for her to return to Nigeria.

We’ve tried Zoom with our family here, which was much more successful than Skype. We could see each other on the screen at the same time. I’ve cooked a delectable roast pork mid-afternoon lunch, then had another hour practising on my Fender Play 3 months free ukelele lessons. I think it’s getting easier! early days yet …

A Storm Brewing …

The weather is, unfortunately, is turning cooler this evening, intermittently raining, with a storm brewing. Sunshine will return tomorrow according to the weather forecast …

We reported negatively again today, to the COVID-19 Symptom Tracker. As of this morning, there were 2,316,166 people across the UK contributing.

How’s your Sunday been?