Traditionally Good Friday has always been the day to plant your potatoes here in Blighty. Seems odd, really as the date of Good Friday varies as much as a month – jolly nearly.
In case you didn’t know, Easter is a movable feast tied in with the moon: Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This means the earliest possible date for Easter is March 22, which would put Good Friday on March 20. The last possible date for Easter is April 25, which would put Good Friday on April 23. So today marks a pretty late Good Friday.
The real reason for Good Friday being the traditional day for vegetable gardening is that in days gone by the only two days a worker could expect as holiday would be Christmas Day and Good Friday.
And it’s too cold for spud planting at Christmas. But I haven’t been planting potatoes today.
However I have been gardening.
I started in my friend’s garden – after making sure Techie was actually up and getting ready to study – and I spent an enjoyable two hours moving plants from one bed to another: she’s creating a herb garden, but has limited shoulder movement and strength. Working together we achieved a lot in a short time. And in return she has offered me two hours help. She has a huge knowledge base and a good design sense, so I shall pop that offer up my sleeve until I need it.
This afternoon has been maintenance and removal. Removal of moss and weeds from established patio and cleaning – tedious work, but so worth it – a bit like cleaning windows. Looks great for now but will need a repeat effort later in the season. Then I have removed moss from the front driveway and swept it, and I have dug up and removed a patch of golden rod, with its mass of fibrous roots. And lastly I have removed a double Kerria which was causing great offence to my eye in the front shrubbery. Wrong colour, and not my favourite shrub.
In the shrubbery the magnolia flower is a lovely soft pink with a slightly deeper base, the Berberis behind is a deep red, the lilac a deep purple and all the rest is fresh new green growth…. all except the Kerria which is – was a brash yellow. IT HAD TO GO! – All gone now.
We have had no rain for ages now. The ground is so dry, so this evening I have watered.
Overall it has been a Good Friday.
What about you?
Boadicea's Chariot 
I was preoccupied with an exam today, though I think I will do well — despite taking a few risks on an essay answer (non-politically correct response), and getting caught up in minute details and having to rush through the end. Received another exam in which I had a perfect score. Went to fitness centre and had a good workout. That’s really it, though.
Thanks for that Easter info Pseu, I had always wondered. Great pics too.
Pseu – what a lovely Friday, a good one all round except for the lack of water! Typical of us Brits – I heard many complaining about the lack of rain and that it is too hot! I love it this way!
I had a morning glossing windowsills *yawn*, then a trip to Ikea and Asdas in MK then a lovely long dog walk, lawn mow and BBQ with copious rose wine. Perfik!
Is that ALL Christopher? (A perfect score is something I have NEVER managed 🙂 )
Cuprium, painting can be a pain, but the end result is also worth it.
Me too Val! I knew it had to do with the moon, but not quite how.
Aaaaooooohhhhhhhh!
OZ
Do people actually admit to going to Ikea and asda?
On the same Day!!!!!
I went into both just once.
The Asda in Llanelli about 20 years ago, I looked around and saw somewhat troglodytic customers and a huge queue to get out of the place, forget it! Pretty nasty all round!
My son made me go to Ikea for an experience, a good 5 years ago in Brum. I still cannot understand why they do not issue balls of string so you can find your way out, I swear there must be corpses of erstwhile customers who never made it lithifying in odd corners, the place was full of blown together rubbish. Why buy that junk when you could get decent second hand?
Total bloody mystery to me!
I gardened and visited my hospice patient, we have an ongoing discussion about Hadrian’s Wall of all things! Seriously strange.
Pseu: the highest score I have ever had was 107pc.
Thank you, Pseu. I had always wondered. I thought the date was divined from on high only to the Pope.
Lovely magnolias. Wish mine would blossom. Four years old now and no show. What do they want? A childhood?
How to work out Easter is in the front of any C of E Prayer Book!
Probably not in the modern rubbishy ones but the old ones.
Chief form of entertainment was reading the services for ‘Burial of the Dead’ and the ‘Churching of Women’ during incredibly boring sermons in my youth. Everyone did it!
‘Consecrating Bishops’ was another laugh a minute!
Beautiful flowers, Pseu. We were in Preston; the cherry blossom and the bluebells are quite spectacular there. It is almost enough to make you feel lucky to be alive.
Christopher, how can one get 107% ??? was it in Maths?
Julie, that photo is a mallus, not a magnolia… but my magnolia did take a few years to flower roperly. This year was its first proper flush of good blooms. Is yours located in the right place?
Claire… only ‘almost’?!