May is month of green and white, the woods, verges and fields are all full of glorious blossom. Cow parsley which lines the lanes with flat dinner plate size umbrels, (the dried stalks can be used as pea shooters later in the year) buzzing with pollinators. The great towers of horse chestnut trees proudly show off their Mr Whippy ice cream blossoms ready for conkering in the autumn. One of our favourite ‘blink and you miss it’ blossoming is the hawthorn, or May blossom, the hedgerow Queen. Don’t bring the stems into your home though as it is considered unlucky, instead breathe in its heady fragrance on a bright spring morning and admire the ‘snow’ laden branches.
Continuing with more whiteness, the full moon on the 23rd of May is known as the milk moon; derived from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Rimilcemona,’ roughly meaning ‘three milking days a month,’ with livestock being at their most productive in the run up to midsummer. It is the last full moon before the summer solstice. According to Romany beliefs you can use this last moon to release ties that bind you, tie up loose ends and declare your intentions for the following summer. On another lunar note and following the white theme, the semi-circular knife used to prepare the whitest of white leather ‘vellum’ was called a lunarium. Once the surface was scraped clean it was treated with a mix of lime and chalk to make it supple and bleach it to a moonly whiteness.
This Saturday we are running a slipper workshop in a primary school in Goole, which is fully booked and but do have availability on Sunday for a plant hanger workshop in Bingley https://www.yorkshirecrafthouse.com/
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