May Day.....

Saturday was May Day, in France there are large demonstrations of workers unions', but another tradition is the giving sprigs of 'Lily of the Valley' flowers. Apparently it dates back to 1561, when King Charles the IX of France was offered a sprig of flowers as a lucky charm; in the early twentieth century the gesture was adopted on May 1st as a commemoration of spring. So now people commonly offer the flowers to each other, I think in theory the sprig is supposed to have 13 bells on it to give you the maximum good luck. I suppose it's no sillier than dancing around a maypole!

But it's another one of these traditions that haven't really caught on yet here in Tahiti, along with Easter and Christmas, despite having been pushed at us pretty hard, at least on the local news report! I for one love Lily of the Valley, we had a huge bed of it in our house in Caerphilly, and I still remember the heavenly smell it would give off........still I don't think it'd grow here.....though you could probably try...... At the moment my family are more preoccupied with the preparations for the May Festivities here, which is basically the run up to whistun week (the Pentecost here).