Today is May Day, so happy Beltane.

It seems only yesterday it was Imbolc!

Facemasks may be the haute couture of the pandemic, but here at The Secret Acre they have nothing to do with the Good Life on Lockdown, but everything to do with Paul’s chronic hayfever.

Usually starting in May, the record breaking sunshine this April has left sufferers struggling at least four weeks early. An ominous reminder that coronavirus is just a starter compared to the global havoc and change the Global Warming main course will serve up soon.

Our local museum is keeping residents entertained while it is closed for lockdown, by delving into its picture archives. So yesterday the picture below was past of their weekly mailing, of a time when the community, including schools, took the whole May Day celebrations and the crowning a Queen of May much more seriously.

I’m not too sure about the somewhat authoritarian order to ‘Hail the May Queen’, but I can’t help feeling if one of the outcomes of the current pandemic is a return to a somewhat greater appreciation of, and celebration of, our place in the natural world, then that can only be a good thing.