Ne’er cast a clout ‘til May is out

May Blossom

As a child I understood the dialect word for clothes being “clout” but, like most people, thought this meant keep wrapped up against the cold winter and spring weather until early June.

But, “May” refers to May blossom, the white frothy flowers of Hawthorn that appear on the black twigs before the leaves are out.

Each week I travel almost the whole length of Cornwall from Morwenstow in the far north to Truro far to the south and west.  I make good use of the two major roads in Cornwall, the A39 and the A30 both of them are now lined with the froth of May blossom.

Hedgehog 2013

On the other hand, this also gives me plenty of opportunity to observe the incessant road kill. This last week I have been seeing dead hedgehogs.  Hedgehogs that have responded to the spring weather and stumbled from hibernation into the path of uncaring or unseeing traffic.  I remember my first sighting of a newly awaken hedgehog last year.  It was the 11^th of April when a bumbling and very slow hedgehog trundled across our grass and allowed me to share our dog’s food with it.  It did try to roll into a ball, but the dog food was too persuasive and it fed well on a couple of occasion before wandering off into the leaf pile.  We saw this or another hedgehog on and off until the 16^th of November when it was captured in the night on a trail camera.

If only the hedgehogs would leave it a little later until they were much more alert, with a bit more food inside them before venturing afield we might not see so many of their corpses.


May might be out, but hedgehogs shouldn’t be out this early.