Wednesday 14 June 2006

Clout Casting

As the saying goes - 'Never cast a clout 'til May is out'.

Apparently, it means 'may blossom', not the month of May - up here in the North-East of Scotland, it isn't too confusing in this year of weird weather, as the may blossom ( aka hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna unless someone has changed its name while I wasn't looking) didn't appear until last weekend, so both May the month was out and so was the blossom - all at once.

And oh boy, is it out - I wondered for a moment if there had been a major whitewash explosion over one hedgerow - the trees are absolutely covered with thick white blossom, and the bumblebees are loving it.
Butterflies seem to have emerged at last - there have been a few painted ladies and this morning a red admiral flew over the beach and (rather appropriately) headed out to sea...

This morning saw the last beach session of the summer term, and with the tide well out, we found a lot of stranded jellyfish, both moon jelly (Aurita aurita) and the metallic blue Cyanea lamarki, which caused excitement amongst the kids (0nce they'd finished digging holes, of course). Bucketloads of wobbly jelly were brought for identification - 'can it sting?' 'can I pick it up?' and of course 'can I keep it?' (The brief panic that passes over the teacher-in-charge's face at this point is priceless!)

As to clout casting - well, it's the first day I could leave my jacket in the car, so I guess it counts!

6 comments:

mad said...

Thanks for coming here!

Loudlush said...

Yup, can only concur with the Mackster, this blog is great!!

Ahhh.. blossoms...

Heading into Winter in Oz at the moment (hence my current sand digging proclivity) so blossoms and Spring seem a long, long way away :((

Anonymous said...

Mad - that is lovely; here the Hawthorns were out considerably earlier - I love the hedgerows round my way when they are all dressed in white.

So nice of you to share your blog; looking forwardto catching up! :smooch:

Anonymous said...

Yes, you paint a lovely word picture of Spring by the Scottish ocean!
We have a lot of hawthorn here as well and our first Spring flower is usually forsythia.

So what do you say when the wee ones ask if the jellyfish can go home with them?
At the Oregon state Aquarium my favorite part is the huge tube-like tanks of pink gorgeous jellyfish. You can stand in the middle of them and feel transformed.
Jude

d. said...

lovely. a friend told me of a kid who managed to steal a penguin from a zoo (carried it home in her backpack)... so tell the teachers to be careful. :P

mad said...

Jana!!! A penguin in a backpack!! :roflmao:

Though I had a friend who ended up with a black-throated diver (it's a bird, girls, don't get excited!) in his backpack after a beach survey.....

As to the jellyfish - I always tell the kids that they can't take anything home or back to school that's either alive or wet!!!!!