Michaelmas, or the Feast of Michael and All Angels, is celebrated on the 29th of September every year. It celebrates the Angel of Light who slayed a dragon.
Michaelmas daisies bloom late into September, and beyond, and bring late colour to gardens, as seen here at St Michael’s Church.
In Abingdon, not far from the Church of St Michael and All Angels, the annual Abingdon Michaelmas Fair takes place early in October each year.
On 2nd September 1752 people went to bed, and when they woke up it was 14th September. The dates had changed to be the same as the rest of Europe. Since that time the Abingdon Michaelmas Fair has happened on the Monday before the 11th October instead of the Monday before the 30th September.
At the fair pedestrians can walk safely down the middle of Ock Street and High Street between the fairgrounds rides.
Smoke breathing vehicles are banished for three days by the angels of light.
2017 is the 150th Annivesary year of St Michael and All Angels Church on Park Road. The year is being clebrated from Michaelmas 2016 to Michaelmas 2017. On Saturday night, Pandemonium is the band at a Concert and Barn Dance – all are welcome!
Delightful skyscape picture, Backstreeter.
The Fair is much more effective than any Pelican Crossing.
See how forward-thinking the City Fathers have been by enabling the Ock Fair to take place. Every year they have facilitated a public simulation of the traffic stress that will ensue when all the intended house building is completed without effective road improvements.
‘Smoke breathing vehicles are banished for three days.’ to be replaced by noisy diesel generators… Last year I wrote a haiku about the fair:
The fair is in town.
Hot-dogs, diesel, music, lights,
assault the senses.
Oh. I like this. Haiku all round please: here’s my offering
Rain drench’d bums–wet seats!
Excitement in the darkness.
Candy floss. What bliss!
Somebody else’s turn now …
Queuing in a car or
Queuing for a ride
I know what I prefer
Next!
Crowds for a mile
No doubt it will be raining
I think i’ll stay at home!
So it’s fair time again
Traffic flow concerns are all
trumped by the charter
We used to sing at Carswell School
Michaelmas daisies purple in the border,
big fat leeks all standing up in order.
Whiskered barley talking to the breeze
Low hung boughs of laden apple trees
Chugging engines ready for the reeping
Pounds of chutney labled for the keeping
Giant marrows winning every prize,
Bubbling jars of elderberry wine.
Fruits are bottled, others in the deep-freeze,
Silken poppies blushing in the cornfields.
DON’T BRING MUDDY BOOTS INTO THE HALL,
Golden Onions hanging on a wall.
It’s harvest time,
Harvest time again.
Harvest time,
Give thanks for sun and rain.
A time to take
and a time to give
Harvest time, it’s the time to live
At harvest time…..
Mellow, fruitful harvest time.
that’s a rubbish haiku
davidofLuton,
Yours is 18 syllables.
No it’s not. I make it 5-7-5
Davidofluton.
It IS 18 as ‘again is 2 syllables, thus it is 6-7-5 = 18.