“Ne’er cast a clout till May be out.” How many times did my Gran say that when I chafed at the bit having to wear my winter woollies and, worse still, that dreaded ‘liberty bodice’. I have absolutely no idea what was the purpose of this ghastly garment with all its fiddly rubber buttons. Wasn’t a vest sufficient? Did I really wear both, or does memory deceive me? Anyway, the advent of summer sunny weather meant that I could exchange my grey wool socks for white cotton ones and replace my skirt and jumper with a dress and cardigan. All these garments had been knitted or sewn by my Mother and Grandmother. Ever practical, my Mother sewed my sister and I two new dresses each summer and we also wore the two dresses from the previous year. Oh how desperately I wanted a frilly party dress but Mum’s solution was to sew one of the summer dresses early and let me wear that to Christmas parties. .

May will be out tomorrow. But did the rhyme refer to the month of May or the May blossom? The white flowers of the Hawthorn (May) have been out for a couple of weeks now. I guess people take the meaning they want: if the weather is warm they assume the rhyme meant the blossom but if the weather is bad they wait until the end of the month.

The end of May also sees the end of my ‘30 Day Blogging Challenge’. How was it for you? Are you the successful blogger who had at least a thousand readers? Or the one who has yet to dip a toe in the water, as it were? Or are you just a browser, dipping in and out? I decided to analyse my stats. Does anybody actually look at my Blog? It is the last day in May and my first post was just over a year ago. Yes – the blog has a small following but what post do they like best?

To my complete and utter surprise the most viewed post is one that I wrote before the 30DBC, before I learnt about ‘keywords’ and how to make my writing SEO-compliant.

Top five posts:

November Blues and Nostalgia

Day 4 Narcolepsy and Power Naps

Meet Jane

Day 19 Snail Stomping

Day 6 Being invisible

What is it about ” November Blues” that has attracted more attention than anything else that I wrote? There is no obvious connection between the posts – ah, wait a minute! They are all highly personal to me. And there I was thinking that I should write more about my textile hobby.

Next five posts:

Day 9 Crochet and Narcolepsy

Day 17 Crochet Outfit for Doll

Day 5 Older Drivers should be Banned

Day 8 Crochet Coral Reef

Day 25 Etiquette on Train Journeys

Any thing in common? Two rants and three crochet themes. Nothing that stands out to me – but I am biased. If you have time, please comment on which post you enjoyed most . . .

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