Category: asia

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Peak Cherry Blossom? March 19th

Peak Cherry Blossom Photos by Natalie Tobert (to see her fantastic sculptures, look here:)

This year, I don’t think it is yet Peak Blossom. Last week of March, first weeks of April, my best bet. But I’m going to keep this post here to encourage you to get out there and take joy from the Blossom season. Or Sakura as the Japanese call it.

In 2024, it was early, around March 19th, 2025, two weeks later. There are many suggested places, and I enclose a couple of web links with more details.  But my friend, Natalie Tobert, posted in 2024 about Japanese people queuing up to photo cherry blossom in Swiss Cottage, which you can see above.

Sakura and Peak Cherry Blossom

For the Japanese Cherry Blossom represents both the beauty of life and its brevity. Sakura are honoured by the Samurai, and were on the badges of KamiKazi Pilots in World War 2. The Japanese began their blossom time with Plum Blossom. They can be difficult to tell apart from Cherry but it is much more fragrant. It blossoms earlier can also be white!).

Cherry trees consist of 430 species in the genus Prunus. Wild Cherry and Bird Cherry are native to the UK.  Normal blossom time is April. In mild winters and sheltered places like London they can blossom as soon as February.  The flowers are known as Sakura in Japan, and viewing them is ‘Hanami’.  Bird Cherry usually flowers in May.  Recent blossoming is over 7 days earlier than the average for the previous 1,200 years.

You might like to look at the Natural History Museum discover cherry-trees website. This has more information and suggested places to see blossom.

And here the londonist.com Sakura-in-London-where&when

Here is an Instagram video of the blossom in Swiss Cottage, near Hampstead, London.

The Woodland Trust

The Woodland Trust has a great web page about blossom in general and I include their useful table of blossom time, below. www.woodlandtrust.org.uk

The Trust also have a ‘nature’s calendar’ program. ‘Citizen Scientists’ can participate in projects to track the progress of the sessions in nature. https://naturescalendar.woodlandtrust.org.uk.

To read about Blossom in Haggerston Park read my post.

On This Day

Feast day of St Joseph. Father? Step-Father? Guardian? of Jesus. I see that religious sites like to use the expression ‘Earthly father’. Images of the Annunciation, suggest a divine impregnation at the time that the Archangel Gabriel turned up to tell Mary what was going to happen. See my post on the Annuciation. Joseph is for fairly obvious reasons, patron saint of carpenters, working men, fathers, families and virgins. Emigrants, travellers and house hunters. But also pastry cooks, attorneys and barristers, for reasons I know not.

In Medieval Mystery plays, the scene where Joseph is told by Mary she is pregnant was played strictly for laughs. When Mary gives him the news that he is carrying ‘Gods and his (Joseph’s) child’. He warns all old men not to take young wives, and laments that his name is ruined. Nor is he very impressed when Mary tells him an angel told her the news. Below is a Middle English version of a section of the N-Town Plays, Play 12 Joseph’s Doubt. (these 15th Century Passion Plays are not linked to any particular town or author, hence their name). It is in middle english but just give it a go, don’t worry about the words you cannot understand. You will be able to guess enough of them to make sense of what is going on. If you follow the link below you will get help with particularly difficult words. y’s are often i’s. O’s can be a’s.

N-Town Plays, Play 12 Joseph’s Doubt

MARIA Sekyr, sere, beth nowth dysmayde,
Ryth aftyr the wyl of Goddys sonde.


JOSEPH That semyth evyl, I am afrayd:
Thi wombe to hyghe doth stonde!
I drede me sore I am betrayd.
Sum other man thee had in honde
Hens sythe that I went.
Thy wombe is gret; it gynnyth to ryse!
Than has thu begownne a synful gyse!
Telle me now in what wyse
Thyself thu ast thus schent!
Ow, dame, what thinge menyth this?
With childe, thu gynnyst ryth gret to gon?
Sey me, Mary — this childys fadyr, ho is?
I pray thee, telle me and that anon!


MARIA The Fadyr of Hevyn and ye it is;
Other fadyr hath he non.
I dede nevyr forfete with man, iwys.
Wherfore I pray yow, amende youre mon:
This childe is Goddys and youre!


JOSEPH Goddys childe — thu lyist, in fay!
God dede nevyr jape so with may!
And I cam nevyr ther, I dare wel say,
Yitt so nyh thi boure.

But yit I sey: Mary, whoos childe is this?
MARIA Goddys and youre, I sey, iwys!

JOSEPH Ya, ya, all olde men to me take tent
And weddyth no wyff, in no kynnys wyse,
That is a yonge wench, be myn asent,
For doute and drede and swych servyse!
Alas, alas, my name is shent!
All men may me now dyspyse
And seyn: “Olde cokwold, thi bow is bent
Newly now after the Frensche gyse!”
Alas, and welaway!
Alas, dame, why dedyst thu so?
For this synne that thu hast do,
I thee forsake and from thee go
For onys evyr and ay!

To see more of the play follow this link

First published in 2024, republished in 2025 On this Day added 2026

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Boxing Day & St Stephens Day December 26th

St Stephens, Walbrook. This view of the Church is not normally visible. The brown brick area to the right is much ‘cruder’ than the left. Christopher Wren was saving money by not ‘finishing off’ parts that were not visible from the public thoroughfare. Photo by the Author in 2008

On the second day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
2 Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Feast Day of St Stephens

It is the Feast day of St Stephen. He was the first Christian Martyr and was stoned to death not long after Jesus’ apotheosis. He was a deacon in the early Church, brought before the Sanhedrin for blasphemy. At the trial, he made a long speech outraging the audience. St Paul was in the audience (also known as Saul).

Stephen attacked the importance of the Temple to Judaism, making parallels with idolatry. Perhaps, I wonder, this explains why there are so few early Christian Churches identified in the archaeological record? Were they consciously avoiding large Temple Basilican structures to differentiate themselves from pagan religions?

Wrens & Presents

The 26th is the day when Wrens could be hunted. Read my post about Robins and Wrens and their seasonal importance here. Also, the day, people gave presents (Boxes) to servants and working people. Other days for presents included St Nicholas’s Day (December 6th), Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and Twelfth Night.

St Stephens Walbrook

Wren’s most beautiful Parish Church is dedicated to St Stephen. It is one of the first Parish Churches to have a dome. There is also a splendid Altar designed by Henry Moore. I took a Swedish Choir around the City of London on a guided walk. St Stephen’s was open, and, once inside, they just fancied the acoustics. So, they sang. I recorded. Listen below:

Swedish Choir singing in St Stephen’s London

If you wish to read the post on St Lucy click here:

Picture of Christmas greenery on a gift box
by Tjana Drndarski-via unsplash

Victorian Boxing Day

In 1858, James Ewing Richie wrote about ‘Boxing Night’ in ‘The Night Side of London’. I’ve mixed it up with another source. So here is a list of the people who might come knocking at the door for their traditional Boxing Day Box.

Richie’s advice was to tie up your knocker to avoid paying these people:

The Chimney sweep.  Then varlets playing French Horns pretending to be the Waits – {The Waits were licensed musical beggars}

Then came the Turncock, who switched the water supply to your side of the street on alternative days. Followed by the Postman, the Dustman; the Road Waterer in summer, and the Road Scrapper in Winter. After this, the real Waits turned up for a musical turn. Then the Lamplighter, the Grocer’s Boy and the Butcher’s Boy.

I imagine the Knocker-upper also got a Box. My grandmother told me about the knocker-upper in Old Street in the early Twentieth Century. He would tap on the window with his long stick to wake up those people without a reliable clock.

Google search image 'knocker-upper', the lady at top left worked in Limehouse
Google search image of the ‘knocker-upper’, the lady at top left worked in Limehouse and is using a pea-shooter.

Richie records that he had to give a tip to 6 people who wished him a Happy Christmas on his way to work. The tip he gave was half a crown each. He thought his wife would be lucky to get away with a shilling per person for the trade men listed above. Strange that he gave more than twice as much to random strangers than his wife gave to people who served them all year. Perhaps this reflects his belief that the size of his tip reflected his position in society. It is all curmudgeonly. This is probably because he believed it would be spent on drink, leading to the miseries of drunkenness.

The Drunkards Children by Cruikshank 1848.
The Drunkards Children by Cruikshank 1848. Cruikshank was a famous illustrator from a dynasty of visual satirists and one of Dickens illustrators. The story shows the effect of alcoholism on a family. It ends with the suicide from London Bridge of the mother.

First Published on Dec 26th 2022, Republished December 2023, 2024, 2025

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