High jinks on Midsummer Sundowner Walk
Midsummer’s Day, also the feast of St John the Baptist, is traditionally celebrated on 24th of June, although the longest day actually falls on the 21st of June. The reason for the difference seems not to be clear but maybe results from calendar changes in the distant past.
Originally Midsummer’s Day was a Celtic fire festival, representing the middle of summer, and in the past midsummer fires were lit in high places all over the countryside. Nowadays it is primarily associated in many people’s minds with pagan rituals, druids, stone circles and the like.
The 2013 Cowbridge U3A Midsummer Sundowner Walk, organised as before by Valerie Monaghan, was on Monday 24th June and was a 4 mile walk from St Fagans to a ruined windmill on a high point North of St Bride’s-super-Ely and back.
7 of us met at the Plymouth Arms and enjoyed a meal before setting off. The weather was fortunately dry and reasonably clear. Val’s route took us alongside the Welsh Folk Museum, past the site of the Battle of St Fagans (8th May 1648), under the A4232 link road and then up through long grass to the ruined windmill at the top of the hill.
We were just in time to see and photograph the setting sun.
To toast the Midsummer’s Day sunset Steve had come prepared with a bottle of champagne and 7 glasses!
As the sun slipped away and darkness fell we drained our champagne glasses then stripped off and danced naked around the windmill. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, there was not enough light to make a photographic record. We then made our way back, fully clothed and torches in hand, to the Plymouth Arms.
A lovely evening. Well done Val and Steve.
John Andrew
8th July 2013