May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
Skipping by their fleecy dams.
Or so the nursery rhyme goes. Nowadays lambs in May are quite well grown and fattening nicely for the oven! I turned to Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet for a more appropriate quote :
Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun.
George Herbert:
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie. [from Virtue ]
and Edwin Way Teale:
The world’s favourite season is the spring.
All things seem possible in May.
What have we got for our delight in the parish this May? Well, let’s start with the Hampstead and Highgate Festival which opens here on 7th May- do take a brochure from the back of the church and check out all the events – literary and musical – on offer this year. Details of the concerts being held in the parish church can be found on page 15 of this magazine.
And if it’s May it must be time for Christian Aid Week – and as the parish rep I don’t hesitate to commend it to you and ask you to give generously when the envelopes are handed out in church or wherever you see a collector. From this parish we will be collecting in the High Street on Saturday 16th and for that we need volunteers, please. I’d like to have at least one person every hour from 10 or 11am to about 4pm – if we can manage two at a time, all the better. Please look for the list on the noticeboard and put your name down. Further on in this issue you can read about some of Christian Aid’s projects and follow the link to their website.
The Spring Fair was a huge success. [Details of the takings stall by stall can be found on page 19 although money is still coming in so the grand total may be even more.] The rain obligingly cleared away early, the sun shone, it may have been a bit chilly [from which the jumble benefitted as some of the stallholders bought jackets to keep themselves warm!], the children had a marvellous time:- congratulations all round. The Fair marked the final use of our old style crypt, when it re-opens in the autumn it will be quite different. [See page 8 for an update on the scheme.] From now on coffee will have to be in the church again, as will the Traidcraft stall. This can be cramped and uncomfortable, we know, so please be patient with the coffee team, sensitive to the needs of those who find the confined space difficult to negotiate and look forward to how lovely it’s all going to be when the work is done – oh, and a few prayers for sunny Sundays so that we can be outside wouldn’t go amiss! But of course, as Robert Frost so aptly pointed out, you can’t be sure of anything with our weather:
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud come over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
May
Judy East