July 16 - Day 96 - ‘Tis a Folly to cry for spilt milk.' Jonathan Swift

This morning when the spoon fell out of his cornflakes and scattered milk across the table, Jeff immediately said, ‘Don’t worry I’m not going to cry over it.’ He was certainly more awake than I was to come up with a response so quickly - when instead I couldn’t milk head or tail of it.

In 1659 James Howell listed, ‘no weeping for shed milk’ as an English proverb. There is no clear understanding of its origin though. Some believe it links to folk lore at a time when a belief in fairies led people to lay out a shrine for them, with small amounts of food and drink. If milk was spilt it was, therefore, seen as just an extra gift for the fairies and nothing to worry about. Others people believe it comes from the farming community when cows often kicked over a milk bucket and as it cannot be gathered up and put back in, there was no pint in getting upset about it.

To continue with my collection of useless historical facts. Today, July 16, in 1439 kissing was banned in England because of the Plague. Now, surprisingly the current government (as far as I know) haven’t added this to the legal changes during the pandemic - although 2 metre distancing makes it a little difficult (away from a bubble). In 1439 bubbles didn’t exist and kissing anyone was banned.

As we come to the end of another week, with 2865 miles completed and 1635 remaining, I continue to provide you with completely useless facts along the way. So, if Boris does decide that with cases rising, he needs to follow in the footsteps of King Henry VI and ban kissing, then all we can say is, ‘Absence milks the heart grow fonder’. Given the BBC History magazine described King Henry VI as someone who ‘failed spectacularly as a ruler, losing two kingdoms’ and history suggests that his incompetency for government was a contributing factor to the Wars of the Roses and eventually his murder, I’m sure Boris will want to avoid any comparisons with Henry being made. So - let’s presume that there won’t be a complete ban on kissing in 2021 but at this pint in time, we can all focus on showing compassion and udderstanding at a safe distance.