Almost a quarter of the way into the project and would you believe it has only rained for four days (or five) since St Swithin’s Day. Otherwise we have had lots of sunshine, meaning that the prophecy was false this year but also, a shift in my documenting priorities.

Last Monday gave us 14mm and on Tuesday I collected 2 mm of rain and despite a light drizzle on Thursday evening, plus what seemed like torrential rain in the West Midlands where I was on Friday evening, the test tube remains empty now for a fifth consecutive day.

I cannot complain, being on holiday in the sun is more than enjoyable, however it means already that the idea that the age-old superstition could be true, has been disproven, therefore I have for now switched my attention to ice cream vans, and ice cream.

The end of term signalled school being out for the summer and on the way home, we passed a pink van too quickly for me to document other than this photo. I really like the cones on the front:

Then on to Stratford-upon-Avon – on the way there I fell asleep so missed three in a row on the M6 according to my mum, but I was not disappointed the follwing day when I came across what will surely be one of the most elaborately decorated vans I will ever see. It was parked next to the river and the staff on board were only too happy to allow me to pose with the Bard, even directing me to their website www.macsices.co.uk which signposted me to the ice cream alliance, whom I will contact about my endeavours…

So, a Shakespeare themed van signalled the start of the most successful day for ice creams yet, as I happened upon two other vans in the town during the day: A Wall’s branded bright beast, sans any warning, which I actually saw three times in a few hours, and a more homely Donattelo’s in the market which said MIND THAT CHILD featured a Jungle Book theme:

As well as an ice-cream bike – an innovation I had not previously considered – parked by Shakespeare’s Birthplace:

A statue of a monstrous 99er:

　

And two ice-cream barges, though none of these will count towards the overall total.

The following day and a trip to Warwick Castle brought with it searing temperatures and my first ice cream of the summer. It was a pistachio cone, very nice it was too, devoured whilst watching the birds of prey, though bought from a catering stall just next to the castle wall that is sadly irrelevant to my travails. I did though enter the rose garden and discover the St. Swithin rose:

And I also saw another bike – and someone’s tastebuds tempted and then distraught, their disappointment slowly melting on the gravel:

Wall’s seemed to be the theme of the day as on the way home we spotted a Wall’s red and white van broken down on the hard shoulder of the M40 – too late to photograph, unfortunately.

Upon returning home I read a fascinating article on Heston Blumenthal’s recent interview about ice cream in the June Waitrose Kitchen magazine – those of us awaiting a call from Masterchef need to read such tomes – in which he discussed his forthcoming range of mustard ice cream as well as his childhood memories of ice cream being the highlight of weekly outings to bric-a-brac markets with his gran and the “.. milk solids, egg-coagulation temperatures, non-fat content, over-run calculations and liquid air” and “Robin Weir… an obsessed ice cream fanatic” (whom I will also communicate with) before mentioning his own egg-and-bacon creations and other new savoury inventions.

Whilst I am a long way from those, the notion of the ice cream van and the possibilities therein have given this journey a new direction, twist, inspiration, so we will see whether any rain dampens the spirit over the next few days…

Since Friday it has rained at some point every day.

St Swithin / Swithin has therefore been ‘christening the apples’, and my project has got off to a good start.

Despite a mishap with the measuring cylinder, I set up the apparatus on Thursday evening and prepared for what the next day might bring. On Friday itself, we awoke to bright sunshine, which really was a blessing as my graduation was due to take place that morning. The photographs were all the better for it, and perhaps gave me the positivity and confidence necessary to carry out my little plan.

You see, my Masters research was inspired by a fortune cookie message, which led to my documenting visits to fortune tellers and ultimately led to me having my eyes lasered to create an alter ego: quite a journey over the two years’ study. Therefore I thought, to close this chapter, the perfect act would be to end the story with my passing the retiring vice chancellor a fortune cookie during the ceremony, I know you probably will have seen the occasional zany student attempt similar antics at their ‘handshake moment’ but this was a genuine gift – playful yet sincere – and was captured on film as well as being met with good grace and appreciation by Michael Brown himself, he even e-mailed me to tell me what it said and that it had come true…

Here I am handing it over.

Anyway it was a great ceremony and despite having been lucky enough to experience it a few years ago, this meant more for some reason: I have re-watched it online and scoured all the photos, to help me remember. The rest of the day was wonderful too, and it brought with it my first ice cream van of the forty days:

Then the skies clouded over and the rain I had secretly been hoping for, arrived, thankfully coming too late to spoil anyone’s day.

 

No rainbow as yet, then, but a mixture of sunshine and quite heavy showers… This rain has since been collected in test tubes on a daily basis, and measurements taken: photos will follow but at present we have had:

FRIDAY – 14mm

(And one ice cream van)

SATURDAY – 22mm

SUNDAY – 13mm

(No ice cream van was spotted on either day)

It’s raining now so I will leave Monday’s out for a few more hours, it looks like quite a bit is in there already, and I will get back to you again with another update soon…

My local church has a sign outside that says

IT TAKES BOTH RAIN AND SUNSHINE

TO MAKE A RAINBOW

Remember I told you last time that God said unto Noah, ‘this is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. And, after Noah’s flood the rainbow gained meaning as the sign of God’s promise that terrestrial life would never again be destroyed by flood’ (Genesis 9:13–17) ?

Well, whilst I grew up watching Zippy George and Bungle, Rod Jane and Freddy, and the happy memories of which lunchtime viewing has been marred slightly by recent revelations of innuendo, the rainbow the sign seems to reference and I will discuss here is the one we sometimes see and still marvel at, you know, that one with a pot of gold apparently at the end of it.

 

For a while now, 15 July has been marked as an important day for personal reasons this year but traditionally it means a lot also because of its legacy as St. Swithin’s Day, a day on which people watch the weather for tradition says that whatever the weather is like on St. Swithin’s Day, it will continue so for the next forty days.

There is even a weather-rhyme which is well known throughout the British Isles since Elizabethan times:

‘St. Swithin’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithin’s day if thou be fair
For forty days ’twill rain nae mair.’

Now I had never heard nor sung this rhyme before undertaking this research, nor Billy Bragg’s lovely 1984 song (and this version by Dubstar)  of the same name but the former sums up the concept quite nicely I think.

A popular online encyclopaedia tells us that “St. Swithin (or more properly, Swithun) was a Saxon Bishop of Winchester. He was born in the kingdom of Wessex and educated in its capital, Winchester. He was famous for charitable gifts and building churches.

 

“A legend says that as the Bishop lay on his deathbed, he asked to be buried out of doors, where he would be trodden on and rained on. For nine years, his wishes were followed, but then, the monks of Winchester attempted to remove his remains to a splendid shrine inside the cathedral on 15 July 971. According to legend there was a heavy rain storm either during the ceremony or on its anniversary.

“This led to the old wives’ tale (folklore) that if it rains on St Swithin’s Day (July 15th), it will rain for the next 40 days in succession, and a fine 15th July will be followed by 40 days of fine weather.

“However, according to the Met Office, this old wives’ tale is nothing other than a myth. It has been put to the test on 55 occasions, when it has been wet on St Swithin’s Day and 40 days of rain did not follow.

The emblems of St. Swithin refer to the legend of the forty days’ rain (raindrops) and the apples from the trees he planted: “St Swithin is christening the apples” (Brand, Popular Antiquities, 1813, i, 342)

Indeed, “there is an old saying when it rains on St. Swithin’s Day, it is the Saint christening the apples. Apparently, apple growers ask St. Swithin for his blessing each year because they believe:

• Rain on St. Swithin’s day ‘blesses and christens the apples’.
• No apple should picked or eaten before July 15th.
• Apples still growing at St Swithin’s day will ripen fully.

Therefore, with the help of scientists and the heavens, I will be documenting the weather over the next forty days through rain collection, photographs and a journal, to see this time if a different type of prediction – having experimented with fortune cookies and seaside psychics in the recent past.

 

But what of the sunshine mentioned?

For a while now I have been fascinated with ice cream vans. Another fond memory of childhood is hearing the strange sound fast approaching my grandparents’ road, where we were spending a summer holiday, and running out to see the little guy with a funny eye arrive and rushing to get a ‘99′er off him.

Ice cream vans seem slightly different now, more commercialised and somehow more modern, although traditions remain. The weird little paintings that adorn them, and more specifically the warnings to MIND THAT CHILD.

What really brought this idea to my consciousness was seeing the van in Morecambe – during the visits to fortune tellers – which is decorated vintage style and has on its side the misspelt title of a Morrissey classic.

http://www.everyday-is-like-sundae.co.uk/

For a while last year there were unconfirmed sightings in the North Liverpool area of one that said DON’T SKID ON A KID, LID – the existence of which I can now validate, in fact I see it regularly and passed it only yesterday – and another favourite of mine, DRIVERS REMEMBER… CHILDREN FORGET.

The paintings of cartoon characters are sinister enough, but it’s these messages which offer different warnings and forebodings that I am really interested in.

Therefore the second part of this new project on which I embark, is the collecting of ice cream vans, as that sunshine from the church sign often means ice cream. Summer holidays when we were young always seemed hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement or at least melt Margaret Thatcher’s best inventions, so to evoke these experiences further I will record every sighting of ice cream vans, and document when possible, every detail possible of what I see.

Given how many are for sale on ebay, and how many other artists and photographers have used them for inspiration, perhaps this will be a more exciting theme to pursue than collecting the raindrops that fall on me over the next forty days, but I endeavour to track the evidence or other wise of both up to Wednesday August 24th.

Until then, we will just have to wait and see what St. Swithun decides should happen exactly 1040 years after his death…

So – what is it to be then? As Five Star sang, rain or shine, you’ll always be… One in a million, my fantasy come true. Whether the next forty days are bringing me sunshine, or will I be only happy when it rains?

Because it takes both to make that rainbow, don’t forget…