Sumer is Icumen In

It's May Day, and for those of you who are observing the customs of the season, dancing the May Pole and consumating the joys of the season with your Queen of the May, I commend to you the words of Kipling:

Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
Or he would call it a sin;
But we have been out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring Summer in!

The celebration began at sunset yesterday, because our forefathers always reckoned their days from sunset to sunset. This is true of the both Celts and the Germanic tribes who celebrate Walpurgisnacht.
However for the misguided New Agers, I should like to point out that it is not Beltane until the sun is 15% of Taurus which is Monday 5th May 2008.

Which, as it happens, is a Bank Holiday in Britain this year. And a new moon. Very auspicious! Nudge, nudge...

Plenty of time to buff up my May Pole....