A 3 day stretch of bbq's, gardens, and fireworks as the folks in these parts celebrate not so much the late great grand queen, as the first long weekend of the summer season. Also known as the May TWO-FOUR weekend, which more and more seems to refer to a case of beer rather than a day in May. This is the weekend that garden centres, hardware stores and gas companies get really excited about as winter weary Ontarians dig out the planting gear and drive to the garden centre to buy bedding plants; haul out the lawn mower and drive to the hardware store to get parts to make it work; and/or drive up to the cottage then drive to the hardware store and garden centre to get parts and plants. Oh, and beer. There's got to be beer. The Two-Four, remember? Wine is also permissible, red is preferable.
And Mother Nature has delivered up a cracker of weekend. Saturday and Sunday offered up a taste of summertime with blues skies and warm temperatures. Perfect for burgers and beer. Oh and yes, yard work! The electric lawnmower has been rolled out of the shed for the first time this season and its whirling blade did a nice number on both the front and side yards. Two of the 40V lithium ion batteries were not quite up to the task but I'm happy to report that the other two picked up the slack and no trip to hardware store was required. I did head out to the garden centre where I bought two hanging baskets of begonias and two containers of geraniums. These all can be sheltered should frost make another appearance as it did this past Thursday morning.
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| Original artistry rendered by Jack Frost, May 14, 2015. |
Today, morning clouds have given way to more sunshine, but a shawl of humidity hangs in the air. Still it is comfortably warm and breezy. I'm going to harvest the rhubarb, make a rhubarb crisp for dessert tonight and get a few pies into the freezer.
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| Queen Victoria painted by Andrew Melville in 1845 (public Domain) |
And just what would the old Queen think of all this? Gary Toffoli of the Royal Royal Heritage Trust, says that,
"In Victoria's time there was, I think, more a sense of communal celebrations...the idea of coming together and having giant picnics with hundreds of thousands of people,"
Well we have the celebration part down pat, so I'd like to think she would be pleased. And May 24 is also the official celebration of Queen Elizabeth's birthday in Canada (It's celebrated in June in England, even though ER II was actually born in April. Go figure!). So banish the moaning, break out the cake and candles along with the gardening equipment, burgers and beer. Light up the sky with shooting stars and roman candles.
Three cheers for Victoria and Elizabeth.
Hip Hip Hooray!
Hip Hip Hooray!
Hip Hip Hooray!
