A Few Pictures of our May Day Girl

The Pugh family are loving our visit with KJ's parents, though our plans for the first part of the week had to take a slower turn when I came down with James's tonsillitis on Saturday.  I'm usually quite good at accepting illness and slowing down with great gladness, but this week it has been much harder to accept with grace.  I'm trying to have a better attitude today, and based on James's timetable of sickness, I'm hoping to be fully recovered tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I didn't want to let the month of May go by without a shout-out to our first May Day.

Thanks to friends who were involved in May Day festivities in the neighboring (I struggle so...should I write neighbouring instead?) village Ella was able to be an attendant to the May Queen this year. Our spring has been pleasantly occupied walking to practices on late Sunday afternoons to the village green in Aldborough while the children learned the dances.  Ella was able to fill in whenever another child couldn't make practice, and we enjoyed a warming cup of tea with a friend who lives nearby.

When the Sunday of the festivities arrived the crowd anxiously awaited the arrival of the May Queen and her attendants, the Maypole dancers, and the former May Queens from the past 50 years of May Days in Aldborough, whom the announcer kept referring to as "the old May Queens."

Once arriving at the Maypole the attendants went to their seats under the gazebo, and the dancers took their places.



All of the dancing is done to music played on the accordion, which you will have stuck in your head for days.



The dress and the flowers and the girl, of course, were all so lovely.  It was a very English affair.

After the opening dances the kids received some pocket money and picked out a few things to do.  KJ says finding change in the car is one of the biggest reminders that we're in another country.