A reflection on May, that most pleasant of months. Cup finals, jousting and birdsong.

“When it’s cold outside, I got the month of May”

The Temptations. ‘My Girl’

Must have been a different type of May when they wrote that. The last few days it has been pretty “Baltic” with the wind literally coming down from the Arctic. I can’t imagine how cold it has felt further north? That said, last Saturday, it was glorious. May at its best, reminding us that summer is pretty much here, though since then it has felt rather different. May is that type of month. Granted it can be chilly, it can be wet, its “rough winds do shake the darling buds” on occasion, to quote Mr Shakespeare, but it can be glorious. The blue sky seems just a little ‘bluer’, the sun a little higher, the trees a little greener. The birds are singing. The dawn chorus is close to reaching its peak. Listen out. Six am is about the best time, if you can manage. The dawn chorus on a clear morning is one of nature’s greatest examples of pure revelry. Exuberant, intense, and powerful, yet poetic at the same time. A cacophony of birdsong blending into one, each song itself being distinguishable. The natural world’s own example of a symphony. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know which birds are singing. In this case, ignorance and bliss, are definitely not mutually exclusive.

                Thinking about May, in general, it is a fascinating month. A month of revelry, colour and exuberance. I personally have never danced around the maypole with gay abandon but I’m sure it’s fun. In medieval days, May was a month for jousting competitions, the period’s equivalent of the cup final. A celebration of athletic prowess, colour and pageantry. I can picture it well: The knights’ colourful shields shining brightly in the sunshine. The magnificent horses in their armour. Pretty damsels with their elaborate headgear. Trumpets blaring. Then the joust, itself. Highly impressive skills. It’s scary and difficult enough galloping on a horse, let alone carrying a fifteen foot pole too. That said, they didn’t have sunglasses, gin and tonic or public toilets in those days so I’m relatively happy to admire it from afar, to preserve the romanticism. I do also question the origin of “damsel in distress”. The toilet facilities - whatever they were - at a joust seem as likely as a lonely castle tower? And talking of cup finals, back in the day before football had become the bloated, global and over-exposed circus it is now, the national cup final (alway in May) was arguably the highlight of the domestic calendar, being one of the only games to be televised live. Unimaginable now. Amongst my favourite football memories are watching the players come out at Hampden park (in Glasgow), fans waving their flags, as the Scottish pipe band - in formation - played away in the middle of the pitch. I also liked the opening to the English cup final at Wembley as the proud managers lead their teams right across the middle of the pitch with the crowd cheering. A little more theatrical the entrance of the English version, methinks. Interesting enough too, it seems to me that the pitch was never greener than on cup final day?

May is also the only month which is a verb as well a name; “May I?”. A polite verb at that. I like May.  It may, in fact, be my favourite month? Well it’s up there. ‘January’ I? Yes you ‘January’, just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Neither does ‘January Jones ‘january’ be my favourite actress.’ Some things are just meant to be. They work. She’s not incidentally, lest you judge me or question my motivations. I did like her in ‘Love Actually’ and ‘Mad Men’ though.

One more observation on the weather. These last couple of months, politicians have talked of a “new normal”. I try not to pay much attention to them but as a reference to the meteorological conditions, it would be quite apt as a description. Since this whole lockdown started the weather has been a bit more akin to Malaga than the UK. Blue, calm skies ruled the roost in most of March, if my memory serves me well. April was apparently the sunniest on record. There, of course, have been some exceptions to this, one very wet and cold week at the end of last month and some cold spells but much of the time, it has been glorious. The gentility and stillness of the weather adding a spooky vibe to the deserted streets. Quite how the summer will pan out in these odd times, we shall have to see, but remember to enjoy the nice days. Don't forget that “summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” May your day be a pleasant one.