Milk Cows, Nuts and Chimney Sweeps

"On the first of May

This is moving day.

Spring is here, so blow your job,

Throw your job away."

               --Lorenz Hart

We have arrived at the merry month of May, time to go gathering nuts, if there were nuts to be gathered, and to dance around the Maypole, considered a more acceptable form of pole dancing. 

May-day was long the day of the Chimney Sweeps' Festival in London. Stand your chimney sweep a pint at the local.

We are warned that May is an unlucky month for weddings--Wills and Kate made it just in time--and that it is also unlucky to wash blankets in May. 

Remember, too:

"The wind at North and East

was never good for man nor beast;

so never think to cast a clout

until the month of May be out."

Finally, this month was known to the Anglo-Saxons as "thrimilce," because cows could then be milked three times a day. We are not sure how the cows felt about this.