Well Met, Lady May.

The moon is now over the yard arm and we in the UK have entered the merry month of May. It’s now May Day, or Beltane as I prefer to call it. (I had my Beltane Eve fire a few hours ago. It was a very good fire, but nothing of any great note happened. Unless, that is, you count the odd noises which drifted Jeffrey-wards from some indeterminate source and which I couldn’t quite identify. It might have been my stomach rumbling I suppose, but I don’t think so. I’m more inclined to suspect that it was a unicorn calling from a distant wood, but it probably wasn’t.)

So, the subject of May. May has long been my favourite month and I always feel a little sad when it ends and greatly disappointed if it hasn’t been a good one. May has also been the month most inclined to throw life-changing experiences at me. Something of great personal significance happened last May, and something else of great personal significance happened the previous May. (I’m not going to say what they were because that would be telling, and I don’t feel inclined to tell until approximately one hour before I die. I’m pleased to say that I feel a reasonable expectation of still being alive when I go to bed tonight, so that’s why I’m not telling. Hands up all those who can’t wait for me to die.)

So what else happened in May? Let’s see…

I first placed my foot on foreign ground in May. It was in Canada at the quayside of St John’s, Newfoundland to be precise. And the second time I went to Canada to do my first foreign assignment for a publisher was also in May. Toronto that time. I met the woman who was to become my wife in May, I took my one and only holiday with Mel after our reconciliation in May, and I started the worst job I ever did in my life in May. I left it to preserve my sanity one year later in May. And then there was the minor matter of escaping from the nightmarish clutches of HM Customs and Excise with whom I had been employed for eleven long years. It finally happened in May with a pretty good settlement. Later the same month I got my first contract with a major London picture library. I could go on. May has been a significant month in the calendar for all my adult life.

So what, I wonder, does this May have in store? Given the events of the past year and a half, maybe it would be better not to make any rash guesses. In any event, I extend the usual welcome to the Merry Maid of May. Whatever you have in store my lady, serve it up and may the universe make me truly thankful.