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Diary

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Never miss Tosset Feast Day or Stir-Up Sunday again!

January
5th - Twelfth Night. Twelfth cake eaten.
17th - Old Twelfth Night. Wassailing with cider in some parts of Somerset and Devon.
1st Monday after 12th Night - Plough Monday. Norfolk Plough Pudding
Evening of 20th - The Eve of St Agnes, Dumb Cake to be made by spinsters
30th - The anniversary of the execution of King Charles I. Calf's Head suppers.

February
Day before Shrove Tuesday - Collop Monday. Eggs and Collops eaten.
Shrove Tuesday - Pancake Day. Pancakes eaten nationwide. Brasenose Ale in Oxford.
28th - End of the small bird shooting season
Ash Wednesday - Grey Peas and Bacon in the Black Country

March
5th Sunday in Lent - Carling Sunday. Fried Carling Peas in the North East
Variable between mid March and April.
Mothering Sunday or Simnel Day or Rose Day - Treats for mothers: Mothering Buns in Bristol, Simnel Cake in Bury and elsewhere. Braggot drunk in Eccles. Blackburn Fig Pie, Mothering Sunday Wafers, Mother's Day Cake, Frumenty or Furmety, Shrewsbury Simnel Cake
Burnley Fag Pie Sunday is the second Sunday before Easter
Variable between mid March and April.
Passover - Roast lamb on the bone, an adaptation of the Jewish 'Seder' meal.
Variable between mid March and April.
Easter - Easter Eggs, Tansy Pudding, Goosnargh Cake, Simnel Cake, Easter Biscuits, Coventry Godcakes, Easter Nests, Onion-Skin Eggs
7 days after Easter -Whitsun, or White-Sunday - Whitsun Ale.

April
23rd - St George's Day. Start of the asparagus season.
24th - St. Mark's Eve Dumb Cake.

May
1st - May day. May Cup
Early May - Cheese-rolling at Stilton.

June
4th - Eton College Prizegiving. Eton Mess.
Early June - Colchester Oyster Fayre

July
Whit Monday, around the 12th - Dunmow Flitch Trials
Mid-month - Pontefract Liquorice Festival
26th - St Anne's Day. Black Cherries at Chertsey Fair, Surrey
31st - Last day of the Naval Grog ration

August
1st Week - St. Wilfred's Day. Wilfra Tarts Eaten in Ripon
1st - Lambswool Ale in honour of the Goddess of fruits and seeds.
August 5th - Tosset Feast in Lancashire Tosset Cakes
Saturday nearest St Oswald's day (5th August) - Rush-bearing ceremony at Grasmere, Gingerbread
21st end of the Grog Ration
End of August - Bumpers on Cherry Sunday, Buckinghamshire

September
1st - Start of small bird shooting season
First Friday - Start of the oyster season. Oysters, gin and gingerbread at Colchester.
2nd Tuesday - Widecombe Fair. Spiced apple ale and gingerbread
29 September - Michaelmas, the beginning of autumn. Goose

October
Early October - Southend Whitebait Festival
21st - Trafalgar Night. Grand Naval dinners, each dish being given a fanciful Nelsonian name such as 'Victory Desert' and a toast made to "The Immortal Memory of Lord Nelson and those who fell with him"
30th - Halloween. Thorcake, Apple-Bobbing Punch

November
1st - Lambswool Ale in honour of the Goddess of fruits and seeds (alternative narrative to 1st August)
5th - Bonfire night. Parkin. Treacle toffee. Toffee Apples
Friday after the nearest Thursday to the 5th November - Bridgewater Carnival Cake
11th - Martinmass Beef
Around 23rd - Five weeks before Christmas begins - Stir-up Sunday - Making of the Christmas Pudding mix.
last Thursday of November - The Vintners' Company hold a 'Swan Feast'
25th - The feast of St Catherine. Kattern cakes

December
23rd - Tom Bawcock's Eve. Stargazy pie eaten at Mosehole in Cornwall
25th - Christmas Dinner
26th - Boxing day, or St Stephen's Day, Goose Pie.