Now is the month of Maying

Having lived in or around Oxford for most of my adult life, the famed May Day celebrations eluded me for many, many years. My initial experience, almost 30 years ago, was of having to walk an extra mile to get to work because of Magdalen Bridge being closed, and passing large numbers of inebriated students as I was trudging to my call-centre employment. The next time I had any connection with it was around 5 years ago when we lived within earshot of the amplified events at Magdalen College, so since I woke up suitably early one May morning, I opened the bedroom windows and listened for a bit before I drifted back to sleep.

In 2020, due to the COVID pandemic of course all the usual events were cancelled - no singing from the top of Magdalen tower, no morris dancing, no in-person celebrations at all. Since I was in isolation at the time, I ended up spending a day looking up the origins of the May Day traditions, and joined in with the online events which had been arranged to mark the day.

Last year, though, was the first time I ever experienced it properly first-hand. Unsurprisingly, I was not one of the thousands of people thronging the High Street and Magdalen Bridge, but was one of several hundred on the river. There were all sorts of watercraft crammed up together - open canoes, racing kayaks, leisure kayaks, SUPs, pedalos, punts, and even someone in a single scull, and a very brave quad scull, all sharing the space.

This year, being rather out of practice at canoeing, and far keener on kayaking, I joined the kayakers from the club. Meeting in time to be on the water by 5.25am felt like a huge challenge, up until I found myself awake at 4am, 15 minutes before my alarm was due to go off. That made it much easier than it might have been - so I got up as quietly as I could, shushed the dog as she was somewhat confused by my appearance downstairs while it was still dark, and headed off.

The moon looked absolutely stunning as I was driving down to the club - but of course in the 20 minutes it took me to get there, the light had come up and the moon had faded. It was a beautiful morning though - a little bit of mist over the fields and the water. Once we were ready, off we went, paddling gently upstream - no rush to get there quickly, and exchanging friendly greetings with the many others who were heading the same way.

I was very glad I'd thought to put an extra layer on and bring a hot drink with me, in the full expectation that there would be a lot of hanging around which could get rather chilly. Most of the paddlers from our club pulled our kayaks out onto the island, rather than trying to battle against the water flow which is still noticeably higher than usual, so we could relax and enjoy the morning instead of working hard! And as the chapel clock struck six, the singing started.

There's something special about the

atmosphere on the river for this. Everyone is there to participate in their own way and for their own reasons. And as the music weaves its spell over the listening crowds, it's easy to feel as though this is a treat just for you.

Once the music ends, the spell is broken by the peal of bells. Their sonorous ringing accompanied us as we sorted ourselves out, got boats back on the water, and set off back downstream. With the river as fast as it is at the moment, the return to the club was wonderfully easy, definitely helped by the knowledge that there was a full English breakfast waiting as soon as we were back!