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ST JOHN THE BAPTIST CHURCH, WASPERTON
A SANCTUARY FOR WILDLIFE

Updated February 2022

Candlemas Day be gay and bright,
winter will have another flight.
But if Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain, winter has gone and won't come again.

Candlemas Day is the 2nd of February. The most prolific day of the year for weather lore. By about the mid 5th Century, the day was celebrated with lighted candles to commemorate Simeon's comment about the baby Jesus as "a light to lighten the gentiles". Also on this day, old candles were thrown away to show the end of Christmas.

This saying is probably the most famous and important of the Candlemas proverbs. The last part gives a 57% chance of success if cloud and rain appear on the 2nd of February for this wet weather to continue till the end of the month. We must wait and see.

The average weather pattern for February is early storms, 24th January till the first of February, then a quiet anticyclonic spell from the 8th to the 16th of the month. Cold, frosty, and foggy. Then another cold period, 21st to the 25th. Finally, a stormy end, say 26th until the 9th of March. I can't wait.

We have the signs of spring in the Churchyard, I know it is always the same, but always different somehow. Is it because we look forward to this season so earnestly with its excitement and promise? The snowdrops and aconites just showing like last year but new again. I hope we get a bit of a cold spell for the snowdrops last so much longer then. I haven't seen my first daffodil yet, have you?

Looking at the grass in the Churchyard is a bit of a worry, after the very mild spell at new year the jolly old grass has started growing already and it's far too early to wake the mowing machines up.

Come on Jack Frost do your duty now and then go off up north again!
Do you think he will take any notice?

Mike Porter
01926 624909

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