🤍🌱🤍Snowdrops symbolise hope and the promise of Spring. In Herefordshire, bunches would be brought indoors at Candlemas to purify and protect the household - but bringing in a single bloom was said to be unlucky, or even a portent of death. #FolkyFriday #FolkloreSunday #Imbolc

Snowdrops are also known as the Fair Maids of February & #Candlemas Bells, as traditionally they are the first flowers to push through the cold winter earth by the start of #February. They are symbols of the new life & warmer days that will now arrive. #FolkloreSunday #Imbolc

The most famous prayer in cinema was unscripted. In the bar scene, George Bailey sits alone. He is bankrupt, suicidal, and desperate. He prays: "God... I'm not a praying man, but if you're up there and you can hear me, show me the way." James Stewart (the actor) wasn't acting.

Illustration by Lily Seika Jones

Catholic wallet card carried by baseball legend Babe Ruth while with the Boston Red Sox, 1914-1918.

The Boomer Generation. 1946 to 1964. The generation who didn't have it all. The generation who played as children in the rubble of cities like London, Coventry and Plymouth, all heavily bombed in WW2. The rebuilding didn't start in earnest until the mid 1960s. The generation

'Looking for signs of Spring' by contemporary UK painter Dee Nickerson #WomensArt #February

“When we see the hazel catkins turn yellow, we know that spring is not far off” Writer: EL Grant Watson Artist: CF Tunnicliffe

The Fair Maids of February (C.M.Barker) Snowdrop by Debbie George

The New Yorker Cover illustration - February 1961 by Ilonka Karasz

Welcome February Tulips George Telfer Bear (1876–1973) McLean Museum and Art Gallery

#FolkloreSunday The snowdrop, in purest white arraie, First rears her hedde on Candlemas daie. While the Crocus hastens to the shrine Of Primrose lone on St Valentine. – Dr Thomas Forster, Perennial Calendar & Companion to the Almanac. February’s flowers harbingers of Spring.

“So, in a single night, Fair February came, Bidding my lips to sing Or whisper their surprise, With all the joy of spring And morning in her eyes.” – Francis Brett Young. Welcome February! Have a wonderful month to all friends and followers. 🐇🐇 🎨Emily Duffin

#FolkloreSunday Tomorrow is Candlemas, the feast of The Presentation of the Lord. It recalls the first time baby Jesus was brought to the temple in Jerusalem by His parents, 40 days after His birth, in accordance with the requirements of Jewish laws. 🎨 Guido Da Siena

#FolkloreSunday Some weather lore for Candlemas/Groundhog Day If Candlemas is fair and clear There'll be 2 winters in the year. If a groundhog does not see his shadow today, spring will come early; if he sees his shadow, winter will endure. Happy Groundhog Day 🎨VernonThomas.

#ShakespeareSunday To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. Hamlet, Act III Scene 1.

Whatever you do, please don't stop reading. Read for joy. Read for education. Read for resistance. Read books. Read about experiences that differ from your own. Just. Keep. Reading.

The Coming of Spring, 1899 ~ Edward Atkinson Hornel

“When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard "having children" as a question of pros and cons, the great turning-point has come. For Nature knows nothing of pro and con.” Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West

Robin and snowdrops by illustrator Molly Brett (1902-1990)