Today – 2^nd February  - is Groundhog Day a traditional US festival!  According to folklore, It is the day that the Groundhog (a small animal) comes out of his hole after a long winter sleep to look for his shadow. If he sees it, he regards it as a sign of six more weeks of bad weather and returns to his hole.  If the day is cloudy and, hence, shadowless, he takes it as a sign of spring and stays above ground.  You can find more detail on the ‘official’ website! 

It’s a good thing we don’t have such a tradition in the UK – we’ve had quite enough of the winter (it’s been the coldest January for 23 years) and we are happy now to be seeing some signs of spring!

Groundhog day is probably better known becasue of the 1993 film in which Bill Murray is forced to live the same day over and over until he can give up his selfishness.

In the UK there are similar traditions concerning the weather – perhaps the most well-known is St Swithuns Day (July 15^th) where it is claimed that if it rains on that day it will rain for the next 40 days! That’s right in the middle of the UIC summer camp so we will have our fingers crossed that day!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 9:58 am and is filed under Life in London, Summer schools for children and teens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.