This week is St. Swithin’s Day Week in Exploring Nature With Children. July 15th is St. Swithin’s Day itself, and here, in north-west England, it has poured with rain.
Saint Swinthin, or more correctly, Saint Swithun, was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of England during the ninth century. He was known for his humble and generous nature, and legend tells us that he requested to be buried modestly, outside the cathedral. Much later, the cathedral was rebuilt, and there was an attempt to move his remains to a special shrine within the cathedral. The move was delayed by a severe rain storm, and it is believed this storm is the origin of the old wives’ tale that if there is rain on St. Swithin’s day, then it will rain for the following forty days. However, if it is dry on St. Swithin’s day, then the next forty days will be fine.
Rose has been busy experimenting with sketching from photographs:
Her skills are improving all the time, which in turn is building her confidence.
I sketched a wee nature treasure: a fallen conker, and set up a chart to record the days of rainfall over the 40 days from St. Swithin’s Day:
(I missed crossing my ‘T’! ~ don’t worry, I have done it now!)
How was the weather for you on St. Swithin’s Day?
Happy exploring!
No rain here! But then again, that’s kind of a given for us at this time of year. ☺ I love looking at your nature journals! Do you have formal training in watercolors?
The St Swithin’s legend is proving correct so far here, Sara! Where about in the world do you live?
I have no formal training in art. I began to keep nature journals with my children when they were small, so I am learning ‘on the job’ so to speak!
I began with coloured pencils, but it was taking an age to complete a journal entry, so I switched to the method Miss Mason’s students used; the watercolour dry brush technique, but again, I was finding it was taking a long time & so I was putting off working in my nature journal. Eventually I came up with my own much looser style, and now I am recording in my nature journal all the time. I am finding it to be a much quicker, and for me, a more joyful experience.
I wrote a tutorial a while back that you may find interesting:
https://raisinglittleshoots.com/2015/11/02/creating-a-watercolour-nature-journal-page-a-tutorial/
I was just reading about St. Swithin’s day in my Chambers Book of Days 🙂 so lovely to see you post about it. We were overcast but no rain in Devon 😉
Thank you Shirley! So much rain here in Lancashire, but the last couple of days have been HOT & sun-shiny.