May, Glorious May

There is something about the word ‘May’ that just feels like a little exhale, isn’t there? The month itself seems to arrive with a quiet promise, that the year is warming up, that the days are long and getting longer, and that there is still so much good ahead of us. I have always loved it. The blossom, the birdsong starting before the alarm does, the way everything feels so very alive and insistently, stubbornly green.

And this year, May has gifted us something particularly welcome:  Two bank holidays weekend. I don’t know about you, but I felt the need for it in my bones. An extra day, just one extra day has this wonderful way of completely changing the shape of a weekend. Suddenly there is room to breathe, room to potter, room to do absolutely nothing useful and not feel remotely guilty about it. That is the magic of a bank holiday. It gives you permission.

Now, I will be honest with you - the forecast is looking a little iffy. There may be rain. But honestly? I am not complaining. It has been such a dry stretch lately, and you can feel it in the garden, in the ground, in the horses’ field. The land is thirsty. A good soaking rain is not a disappointment right now, it is practically a gift. So if the skies are grey and the wellies come out, so be it. There is always the AGA and a pot of something warm on the go. A rainy bank holiday has its own kind of cosiness.

May Day Holds Something Very Special for Me

But there is another reason May will always feel significant to me, and it has nothing to do with the weather or the wildflowers, as much as I love both. Twenty years ago, on the 1st of May - May Day - Simon proposed to me.

Twenty years. I say it and it still catches me off guard a little, in the best possible way. I remember the day so clearly: the light, the feeling of complete and total surprise (he had kept it wonderfully secret), and that specific, particular happiness that settles over you when you realise your life is about to change in all the very best ways. May the 1st has been threaded through with gold for me ever since.

I think that is partly why I feel such warmth towards this month. May Day is not just a date on the calendar, it is a little private anniversary, a moment each year to look across the kitchen table at Simon and think: ‘Twenty years ago, this all began.’ Life has grown and changed so much since then, in ways I never could have imagined and some I would never have wished for but that thread back to that first of May holds steady.

Here’s to the Month of May

So this May, I am going into it with gratitude. For the extra bank holiday days however the weather behaves. For the rain that the garden so badly needs. For the long evenings and the late sunsets and the fact that the horses are out in the field until all hours and the whole world feels a little looser and more generous somehow.

And for May the 1st, always. That will never stop feeling like a reason to quietly celebrate.

Happy May, everyone. I hope it is a good one for you.

With love Charlie x