THINGS TO NOTE AND NOTICE
Nature Project
Make no-sew bunting for your trees and hedges
Whether you’re planning a midsummer outdoor supper, or a right Royal knees-up in the garden for the Jubilee, some bunting dangling from branches is sure to set the right atmosphere. Here’s how to make bunting – that won’t go soggy in the rain – without a sewing machine. You’ll need a few off cuts of oil cloth – an old table cloth is ideal. Cut a paper template for the flags. They can be as big as you like but around 30cm tall is a decent size. Draw around the template with a pencil on the back of your oil cloth to make as many triangles as you need and cut out.
Cut some thick twine to the length you want. Lay it on the floor and space out your bunting triangles along its length to check where they should go. Leave a little length at either end.
Use a hot glue gun to squeeze glue along the base edge of your first triangle on the back of the cloth, about an inch from the top, then fold the edge over the twine, sticking it to the back of the oil cloth beneath. Repeat for other triangles. Once dry, hang at a jaunty angle and pour a Pimms.
FOLKLORE Wybunbury Fig Pie Wakes
For reasons best known to themselves, the folk of Wybunbury in Cheshire have been baking fig pies and rolling them down a hill in the second week in June, for the last 200 years or more. The origins of the race, held at the Wybunbury ‘ Wakes’ ( pre- Christian festivities) are uncertain, but date back to at least 1819. The pie is made of salt dough to withstand any bumps or potholes, and must be filled with apples and figs. The winning pie is the one that rolls furthest without disintegrating.
For some years, pies were also flung from the top of the church tower. For a time in the 1890s the Fig Pie Wakes were banned, as they became rowdy, often ending in brawling. Whether the pies being hurled from the tower was the catalyst for the ban, or came as a result, we wouldn’t like to comment…
Sunset hour
Druid priests believed herbs were at their most effective when picked on the solstice. They’d then be dried to be used through the year. Herb-picking is a lovely sundown activity for any day around the middle of summer. Spend time pottering around your herb garden, weeding, potting and then picking herbs. Then take a few sprigs indoors to make a refreshing herbal tea to take to bed with you. The sun sets at around 21.19 in London and at 22.00 in Edinburgh in mid June.
Birdwatch
Best known for the two Turtle Doves that ‘my true love gave to me’, you’d actually be lucky to see a Turtle Dove at Christmas (or you would be in South Africa). Look for: A small pigeon, a little bigger than a blackbird with a grey head, pink chest, orange and brown back and three white bands on its neck. Spot them: Mainly in the south and east of England in woods and parks. You should feel privileged if you do see one; turtle doves are the UK’s fastest-declining bird, teetering on extinction. Listen for: A purring ‘turr turr turr’ sound (hence the moniker). Very different from the collared dove’s coo.
Breakfast is often said to be the best meal of the day, but breakfast outdoors as the sun rises takes some beating. You could always join the masses of druids and assorted others at Stonehenge to welcome the sun in on the solstice. But there are lots of other places to enjoy a fabulous sunrise this month.
In London, head high, to Primrose Hill or Crystal Palace park, or go and stand on London Bridge and look towards Tower Bridge for a spectacular sunrise view. In Scotland, you can see the sun light up the heather from Rannoch Moor in Perthshire, or watch it over Edinburgh’s rooftops from Arthur’s Seat. Great seaside sunrises include Mousehole in Cornwall and Cromer, Norfolk. You want somewhere high up, like a hilltop, or somewhere with a long view to the eastern horizon, like a beach.
Packing up the camping stove with the wherewithal for a bacon sarnie is always a good plan, but the only essential really is a flask of something warming to be able to sip upon as you welcome the sunrise.