h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is something festive about washing on a line, it should be encouraged, apart from the rule against working. Think of Ogden Nash:

And bloom, ye clothesline, bloom with wash
Where erstwhile squudged the grim galosh

That really does sound like the beginning of spring. Mud on the ground and sun in the sky.

Why don't we get any in-between seasons any more? I'm sure the weather spent a lot more time going from Winter to Summer (and back again) in my youth. Nowadays it's scarves and woolly hats one day and tee shirts the next.

I've heard that in the UK you can legally take your kids out of school on Ascension Day, but you have to write to the head first.

I went to a Catholic school and we got Ascension Day and Corpus Christi off.

Now Corpus Christi is funny. It's a holiday here where I live (and where Sho lives, too, but not for Yelbakk) When re-visiting Troyes, where I spent part of my young adult life, a few years back, I learnt that St Urbain (the Pope that came from Troyes) introduced this holiday some time in the 13th (?) Century. But the French have never heard of it.

That, however is probably due to the fact that in France there is a strict divide between Church and State. No religious education in schools. My colleague, who is French, sometimes says odd things as a result of this. For example, I had to point out to her that Elijah was not a story from the New Testament. Not that I learned that sort of thing at school, more likely from singing in choirs.

Mind you, she knows more about Philosophy than I do, so it's tit for tat, I suppose.