The year has reached its chilly end. Hogmanay gave us the rarity of a blue moon and it is even rarer still for it to fall on the last day of the year
There are usually twelve full moons in a year and each has its name from The Moon After Yule in January, to the Wolf Moon, Lenten Moon, and so on to the Harvest Moon, Hunter’s Moon and The Moon Before Yule. If the “extra” full moon at the end of the year was called the Moon after Yule which, strictly speaking, it is, it would knock all the other names out of place, so it has become the “blue” moon.
As we came scrunching back over the frozen snow after bringing in the New Year, the clouds parted obligingly for us to catch a brief glimpse of the silver disc and , yes, it did look to have a hint of blue about it. It won’t happen again until 2028, so that might have been our only chance. Who knows?
The first day of 2010 was the day for the annual dip in the North Sea. Starting as a dare about twenty odd years ago, the custom has continued and grown over time attracting new adherents, guests, and some of the offspring of the earliest participants carrying on in the family tradition. At least one of the pioneers was still braving the briny.
Being an original, I felt that I ought to still to be taking the plunge but had the excuse of convalescence to avoid the heart-stopping dive in to the sea.
Accompanied by a piper, and surrounded by well wishers and a few astonished visitors, the latest recruits, including two Frenchmen upholding the honour of la patrie, made that adrenalin-charged dash down the beach and into the waves..
It was heartening to see that sheer lunacy still prevails and our proud tradition of innate idiocy is being carried on by the next generation.
Who says that folk can’t make their own entertainment anymore?
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