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ALMANAC 2019. PDF

274 Pages·2018·17.424 MB·English
by  LEENDERTZLIA
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A SEASONAL GUIDE TO 2019 LIA LEENDERTZ 'I love this gem of a book' CERYS MATTHEWS THE ALMANAC THE ALMANAC A SEASONAL GUIDE TO 2019 LIA LEENDERTZ With illustrations by Celia Hart MITCHELL BEAZLEY An Hachette UK Company www.hachette.co. u k First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Mitchell Beazley, an imprint of Ocropus Publishing Group Ltd Carmelite House 50 Victoria Embankment London EC4Y onz www.octopusbooks.co.uk Text copyright© Lia Leendertz 2018 Design and layout copyright© Octopus Publishing Group Ltd 2018 Illustrations copyright© Celia Hart 2018 Sichuan-style bacon recipe, pp.46-47 © Li Ling Wang 2018 Jewish chicken soup with-kneidlach recipe, pp.89-90 © Josephine Haller 2018 Pierniczki w czekoladzie recipe, pp.258-259 © Ren Behan 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Every effort has been made to establish copyright ownership of material included in this publication and the publisher apologises for any errors or omissions made. Lia Leendertz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United Kingdom rn987654321 Publishing Director: Stephanie Jackson Creative Director: Jonathan Christie Designer: Matt Cox at Newman+Eastwood Junior Editor: Ella Parsons Copy Editor: Alison Wormleighton Senior Production Manager: Peter Hunt Ovens should be preheated to the specific temperature - if using a fan-assisted oven, follow your oven manufacturer's instructions for adjusting the time and the temperature. Pepper should be freshly ground black pepper unless otherwise stated. CONTENTS Introduction 6 Notes on using The Almanac 7 January IO February 32 March 52 April 72 May 94 June 116 July 136 August 158 September 180 October 200 November 222 December 242 References and Further Reading 264 Acknowledgements 265 Index 266 THE ALMANAC 2019 INTRODUCTION Welcome to The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2019. For those who enjoyed last year's edition, this book includes new features to celebrate seasonal songs and folklore, cheeses of the month, meteor showers and beehive behaviour. For newcomers, this book is intended as a toolkit for connecting with the world around you, and the year ahead as it unfolds. It is about the things that will make each month of the coming year feel special - the festivities, gardening, natural phenomena and seasonal foods that mark out that month, as well as the tides, moon phases and sunrise and sunset times that are particular to 2019. The Almanac offers ways of appreciating the natural rhythms of the year no matter what your energy level or inclination. If you want to get out for a country walk at bluebell time or watch the sunrise at dawn on midsummer's day, then yes, this is the book for you. But if it suits you better to sit at your window and spot Mars alongside the crescent moon Oanuary), or eat strawberries when they are at their peak Oune), or learn a harvest song that has been sung for centuries (August), then you will also do well to have this almanac at your side. Maybe you just want to stand on London Bridge at rush hour and know that the tide is at its height. The Almanac is as happy on an easy chair's armrest as it is in the kitchen, in the handbag or in the backpack. While I realise it has the potential to spark outings and gatherings, I hope above all that it will prompt a lot of gazing and thinking, because that is what it does for me. However you use it, I wish you a year of feeling a part of things: of the turning of the earth and the seasons below your feet, the buzzing of the bees and the blooming of the flowers they land on, the arrival of crops, the coming and going of tides, and the moon, sun and planets performing their cosmic dance, just outside the window there. Have a wonderful 2019. 6 NOTES ON USING THE ALMANAC NOTES ON USING THE ALMANAC Scope The geographical scope of this almanac is the archipelagos of the British Isles and the Channel Islands or, to put it another way around, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, plus the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and the Republic of Ireland. 'The British Isles' is used as shorthand, with apologies to the Channel Islands. The cultural scope of this almanac is the stories, songs, food and festivities of all the people who live in the British Isles. The sky at night The events within the sky at night sections generally fall into three categories: eclipses; meteor showers; and close approaches of the moon to a naked-eye planet, or of two naked-eye planets to each other. While the first two categories are self-explanatory, the third will benefit from a little clarification. The naked-eye planets are those planets that can be easily seen with the naked eye. They are generally very bright, as bright as the brightest stars, and this makes them relatively easy to spot, even in cities where sky-spotting conditions are not ideal. From brightest to dimmest they are Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. Those not included in this almanac are Mercury, Neptune and Uranus. Mercury is very hard to spot because it is close to the sun and therefore is usually lost in its glare. Neptune and Uranus can only be spotted with strong telescopes. A 'close approach' means that two of them, or one of them plus the moon, are in the same part of the sky. They are, of course, nowhere near each other in reality, but to us, looking up, they appear as if they are. This can make them easier to spot than they would be when they are lone-ranging across the sky. To identify the part of the sky where they will most easily be seen, I have given the best time to spot them, plus a compass point and the altitude. The time is important;because the sky wheels around us as the night wears on. The altitude is given in degrees: the horizon is o degrees and straight up is 90 degrees, so find your point somewhere in between. 7 THE ALMANAC 2019 Tides A full tide timetable is given each month for Dover. For approximate high water time differences for various spots around the coast, refer to the table below. Note that these approximations provide a fairly rough idea of tide times, though generally will be correct within ten minutes or so. Approximate high water time differences on Dover Add or subtract these amounts of time from the Dover timetable to find the tide times for the following locations. For instance, if it is high tide at Dover at midday, it will be high tide at Bristol (-4,h rnm) at 07. 50 and at Aberdeen (+ 2h 3rm) at r4. 3r. Aberdeen: +2h 3rm Cork: -5h23m Firth of Forth: +3h5om Swansea: -4,h 50m Port Glasgow: +rh 32m Bristol: -4,h IOm Newcastle-upon-Tyne:+4,h 33m London Bridge: +2h 52m Belfast Lough: +oh7m Lyme Regis: -4,h 55m Hull: -4,h 52m Newquay: -6h4M Liverpool: +ohr4m St Heller, Jersey: -4,h 55m Do not use these tables where accuracy is critical -you will need to buy a local tide timetable, or sub~cribe to Easy Tide, www.ukho.gov.uk/easytide. Also note that no timetable will take into account the effects of wind and barometric pressure. The approximate high water time differences may look quite random. -;rhis is because tides do not cause a general raising and lowering of the water all around the British Isles. They work more like a series of huge waves travelling around the coast, the crest of the wave being high tide and the trough of the wave being low tide. One set of waves travels up the west coast of Wales and the east coast of Ireland where they join up with another set coming up Ireland's west coast. They then travel up and over the top of Scotland and part way down the east coast of England. Another set heads off in the opposite direction from Land's End along the south coast of England and up the east coast, where 8 NOTES ON USING THE ALMANAC they meet the first set of waves. So there will be tidal peaks and troughs all around the coast at different rimes: when it is high tide at Land's End it will also be high tide on the west coast of Scotland and in Yorkshire. At the same time it will be low tide in north Wales, the northeast coast of Scotland and the Thames Estuary. Once high tide has passed, low tide will be along in around 6 hours 12 and a half minutes. Using this and the above, you may be able to work out the tide times for where you are. Spring and neap tide dates are also included. Spring tides are the most extreme of the month - the highest and lowest tides - and neap tides are the least extreme. Spring tides occur as a result of the pull that happens when the sun, moon and earth are aligned. Alignment occurs at new moon and full moon, but the surge - the spring tide - is slightly delayed because of the mass of water to be moved. It usually follows one to three days after. Knowledge of spring tides is useful if you are a keen rock-pooler or mudlarker. You want a low spring tide for best revelations. Gardening by the moon Just as the moon moves the earth's water to create tides, some believe that it has other, hidden but equally consequential, effects on the natural world. If it can move the oceans perhaps it can move ground water, too, and even the small amounts trapped in each plant. Planting by the moon is a method of gardening that taps into and utilises the rise and fall of water with the moon's phases. A new moon is considered a good time to sow root and slower-germinating crops, because soil moisture is increasing. Faster-germinating plants that crop above ground should be sown in the run-up to full moon, when the pull is at its strongest and so ground water will be at its highest. The full moon is also the best time to harvest crops for immediate use, as they will be at their juiciest. After that, the moon's pull starts to wane and ground water drops - these are good times for pruning (to minimise sap loss) and harvesting for storage (skins are drier and tougher). This almanac makes no claims on the efficacy of planting by the moon, but if you would like to give it a try you will find relevant dates and jobs in each month. 9

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