Good Friday, Easter Monday, Early May Bank Holiday and now the Spring Bank Holiday… we seem to have had a lot of holidays in the UK recently.
Surprisingly, the Early May Bank Holiday actually coincided with May Day this year, and today, too, has its own traditional associations:
The 29th of May is Royal Oak Day:
if you don’t give us a holiday, we’ll all run away !
Sadly, I didn’t pass even a single oak tree on my brief walk to the shop this morning, so have settled for pulling a few dead leaves from the archives.
There are lots of other photos of trees in my files but, although it’s been a holiday, I haven’t had time to prune them into shape to post, so will fall back on Edith Nesbit’s words:
Child’s song in spring
The silver birch is a dainty lady,
She wears a satin gown;
The elm tree makes the old churchyard shady,
She will not live in town.The English oak is a sturdy fellow,
He gets his green coat late;
The willow is smart in a suit of yellow,
While brown the beech trees wait.Such a gay green gown God gives the larches –
As green as He is good!
The hazels hold up their arms for arches,
When Spring rides through the wood.The chestnut’s proud, and the lilac’s pretty,
The poplar’s gentle and tall,
But the plane tree’s kind to the poor dull city –
I love him best of all!
