Sunday 23rd March 2008

Easter Sunday. The festival of Eostre. Everywhere else calls it some variation of the Passion (Pasch) but we call it after the Pagan celebration for the Goddess Eostre which the church 'merged' into Easter in a bit of clever early PR.

I don't think that there are that many traditional celebrations happening now (like lifting) but there may still be Pace Egging, Egg rolling and Church Clipping if you look out for it.

St Patrick's Night was interesting I gather, not least because of the confusion of when it was. It's on March 17th, right? Well no, not always. As Easter Day is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, it can be as early as the 22nd March. This year it is the 23rd and that means that St Patrick's Day falls inside Holy Week. By the Catholic Hierarchy, Jesus ranks higher than St Patrick, so the Religious celebration for St Pat was moved by Papal decree to Saturday 15th March instead. The secular celebrations were not affected by this but it did mean that Paddy's celebrations went on a bit this time - From Saturday to Monday.

Back to sessions though. The Irish Session on Wednesdays at Wingham continues in an established way irrespective of who attends. There have been some newcomers recently but it remains a core of dedicated musicians who keep it going.

Some of us have reached the conclusion that Thursday at Faversham is not a session so therefore shouldn't feature in the Session Diary. There may be passing references in the future to the 'Pals Gala Evenings' some of which can be very enjoyable, but we'd only get cross if we thought of them as sessions. Occasionally it may turn into one, so I'll let you know when it does.