It's May

 Book of Hours Calendar - May

 "It's May, it's May, the beautiful month of May"

Why is it that the month of April just flies by?  You'll never hear anyone complaining, "Will April ever be over?" like we do in January.

And now I have to take back the mean things I said about the Blogger user interface, because there's a new "extra-large" option for uploading images.  I won't always hit you in the face with such a big picture, but this one from the Book of Hours is worth it. To put it in perspective, the original book paintings are only about 7x11 inches. On my laptop, that's about the size I'm looking at now.

This image isn't high resolution, but check out the detail. The beautiful horses, the pet dogs, the fine ladies in green, the bejeweled noblemen. What's going on?  This is an ancient festival called "Maying" when (rich) people wore special green clothing and went out for a jaunt. Here's a description from my book:

The garb worn by the three girls is a refined soft green, a color obtained from the crushed crystalline stone, malachite. The sumptuous dress lined with blue and ornamented with gold flower work identify the girls as princesses.  One, wearing a white headdress decorated with green leaves, dominates the middle of the scene.  Turing to contemplate her is a rider dressed in black and white, the royal livery of France. At the girl's left rides a man dressed in a rich, blue coat strewn with golden glowers, it could be the Duc du Berry. Musicians lead the gay group of riders to the sound of trumpet, flute and trombone. They are accompanied by the Duke's small dogs which frisk about the horse's feet.

Well, that certainly beats the modern International Worker's Day tradition of marching and shouting with a sign on your shoulder.