Country Diary of a Lady: February

“This month derives it’s name from the word Februare, to purify, or from Februa, the Roman festival of expiation, which was celebrated through the latter part of this month.

In ordinary years there are 28 days in February but in leap-year 29.

Feast Days Etc.

Feb. 2 Candlemas Day

Feb. 14 Saint Valentine

Feb. 24 Saint Matthias

“February fill dyke be it black or be it white.”

“All the months of the year curse a fair Februeer.”

“If Candlemas Day be fair & bright Winter will have another flight.  But if Candlemas Day be clouds & rain Winter is gone & will not come again.”

“If February bring no rain ‘tis neither good for grass nor grain.”

“In February, if thou hearest thunder, thou shalt see a summer wonder.”

“One month is past, another is begun,

Since merry bells rang out the dying year,

And buds of rarest green began to peer,

As if impatient for a warmer sun;

And though the distant hills are bleak and dun,

The virgin snowdrop, like a lambent fire,

Pierces the cold earth with it’s green-streaked spire

And in dark woods the wandering little one

May find a primrose.” ~Feb. 1^st 1842 Hartley Coleridge

February 3^rd: It says in today’s Chronicle that at Dover a Blackbird’s nest with two eggs has been found, at Edenbridge a Hedge-sparrow’s with four eggs and at Elmstead, A robin’s with five eggs.

February 12^th: I visited the violet wood again today, the Lords and Ladies are quite up above ground now; and the violet roots are sending up little green trumpets of new leaves.  The ground in the woods is covered with tiny seedlings of the Moschatel.

I gathered some Gorse blossom on my way home.

The Elm trees are just braking into blossom and the willows are showing their downy white catkins, - very small as yet.

Excerpted from "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" by Edith B. Holden