I won’t be there…

I have always meant, one year, to get up and go and be on Magdalen Bridge one May Day morning to listen to see if I could hear the choristers above the noise of the revellers below.

Never managed it the three years I was living in the city centre but I’ve had it on my To Do Before I Die list ever since.

I’m only twenty five miles away and you’d think I’d be able to get up early or stay up late one year….

This year I won’t be there and neither will the Choristers though there’s a schemeto do it ‘remotely’ or maybe ‘virtually’.

I wonder if it will be enough.

Because obviously this is one of those British Rituals that are done to placate the terrible elder things that dwell just beyond our reality. In fact given it’s May Day, I’d say it’s an attempt to keep the Fair Folk over in their territory by dedicating the dawn to the White Christ and prevent their resurgence.

I see the ‘virtual’ celebration includes a local folk group singing ‘Over The Rainbow’. Asking for trouble I calls it.

If the barriers between the worlds fall at dawn, I will be in my bed if anybody needs me.