February thoughts...

The Celts and Romans considered February to be the start of spring. All I can say is that either they were bonkers or that it must have been a lot warmer back then. What with the snow and wind it’s freezing today and to cap it all I’m four days late for Candlemas.

Candlemas, I ask you, just what is that about? Half way between the shortest day and the spring equinox, the end of the olden Christmas season and the midpoint of winter. Brrrrr. No wonder it’s so bloody cold. It was on this day that churches all over the country blessed all the candles they would use in the coming year. Yes, a mass for candles. Well, we are talking religion here and the Christian religion at that….Amen. Perhaps vicars do the same with low energy light bulbs these days.

I find it really hard to take February seriously as a month, for one thing it’s too short, not a proper month at all. It’s the runt of the litter as far as I can see. Just twenty-eight days, twenty-nine on a leap year – it’s hardly worth bothering with. The Saxons used to call it cake month, but then they also called it sprout-kale for some Saxony cabbagey reason.

The word February is actually a pretty new one, only about a hundred years old. Not even Victorian really. Shakespeare would have called the month Fererell, Isaac Newton Februeer. I just call it nothing, it’s a nothing time of year, not quite winter and not yet spring, something in-between, a confused month.

Even so, for such a short month it’s crammed with funny little days and weird rituals. Candlemas, Collop Monday (which is a day for eating large pieces of fried meat), Shrove Tuesday with its Pancakes, Kissing Friday for kissing (obviously), Ash (don’t forget to put the twigs in your shoes) Wednesday, Thinking Day for boy scouts (don’t rub two together though) and of course the enigmatic four-yearly Leap Year Day when any woman might ask you to marry should you take her fancy.

Yes, Fererell, Februeer, Sprout-Kale, February, Whatever. Roll on the madness of March.