Part Three brings us up to June and almost midway through the year. June, from the Latin word Iuniores, was the month dedicated to youth by the Ancient Romans.
Often called 'Flaming June', it is a time of fresh and bright colours, the hedgerows filled with new growth and the delights of honeysuckle, wild roses, foxgloves, pink campion and also verges full of the white umbellical flowers (wild parsley, hogweed, etc), wild garlic, the pretty lady's smock and the lovely starry greater stitchwort, along with butterflies and birdsong.
This is the time of long, light evenings in Britain, culminating in the shortest night of the year - the Summer Solstice on the 21st - after a long gradual dusk. It doesn't get completely dark until around 10-45pm here in the South-West, provided the sky is clear of clouds, and is a fair bit later the more north you go up to the Hebrides.
These two photos above and below were taken sometime between 9 and 9-30 on the evening of the Summer Solstice in 2009.
In Britain we often regard the solstice as being the beginning of summer rather than midsummer. We do get hot summers but they don't always last beyond two or three weeks at best!
It is often celebrated with bonfires, festivals and special events in some parts of Britain, particularly in Scotland. Here in England, a well known gathering place is at Stonehenge and other places of prehistorical significance.
In Anglo-Saxon, the terms for July were Heg-monath, meaning Hay Month, or Maed-monath, which means Mead Month. Up until recent decades hay fields were cut to produce lovely sweet smelling hay full of nutritious flowers and grass to make winter feed for livestock. This was usually done in June or July.
Plenty of honey was also produced, not only for sweetness but also for making mead, an
alcoholic beverage containg honey fermented with water and yeast,
sometimes served as a mulled mead heated with added spices for festival
occasions.
St Swithun's Day falls on the 15th of July and is another rhyme that was used to fortell the coming weather.
"St Swithun's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain,
St Swithun's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain no more."
Having seen some Cumulonimbus clouds in Part Two, some more cloud formations include the Mackerel sky, seen below...
A mackerel sky saying is as follows:
"Mackerel sky and mare's tails make tall ships carry low sails."
"Mackerel sky is associated with altocumulus clouds while 'mare's tails' refer to cirrus clouds. Both could develop before the instance of a storm, which would lead to the lowering of the ship's sails." The Met Office.
...plus this amazing billow cloud seen in the next photo.
One of the rarest cloud formations is called the Kelvin-Helmholtz cloud. Named after two meteorologists, Hermann von Helmholtz and William Thomson Kelvin who studied turbulent airflow, it's a billowing wave pattern caught between two air streams.
I was extremely fortunate to be walking along the sea front when I saw this phenomenon. Looking like a pie crust, I called my photo 'Pie in the Sky'. The photo above was the edge of it on the right and the fuller cloud can be seen below.
A few more rain prophecies that I remember being said when I was a girl are as follows:
"When cows lie down in the field it's a sign of coming rain."
Apparently there's no scientific reason for it. It was a fairly unusual occurrance to see all the cows lie down however, and often facing the same direction so that it did seem significant.
"Rain before seven, fine by eleven."
Which can be true, as rain systems coming across Britain rarely last more than four hours. Mind, I've known it to rain all day sometimes, but perhaps there are slight breaks between them which sometimes go unnoticed.
Right, I'm going to leave it there for now as there's still a fair amount to get through so I'm going to do another part. I didn't intend to do four parts but that's how it's working out...so far! Hopefully I can manage without having to do five or more. :)
I don't know what's coming up next. I'm still working on Fore Street in Beer but I've also received my latest photos back from the printers and scanned them. I'm still post editing but I might write up one of those before I finish another long one.
Cheers for now! :)
