Lammas 2024

The other week it was Lammas (Thursday 1st August). Although some people may celebrate on 31st July or 2nd August. My main celebration was baking, I made gingerbread and also some bread (using a mix).

The gingerbread recipe is the BBC Good Food one that I've used for the past few years: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gingerbread_men_99096

This Lammas I made bear and cat shapes as well as the "men"! I used cookie bear and cat cutters that my friend gave me for my birthday. :) I used ready made icing this year. Here's a pic:

 And you can see one of the cat gingerbreads here: 

Icing was a little bit messy but never mind!

I also baked bread, using a sourdough bread mix from Tesco. Bread is a good fit for this sabbat because it's about the harvest, but I don't always make it from scratch because it can be quite a complicated process! The last time I baked bread from scratch for Lammas was 2022, when I made "Man Bread" from Don't Waste the Crumbs. You can see a picture here: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2022/08/lammas-2022.html

Last year I made a Cornish style pasty instead.

I started the bread the night before because even the mix can take a bit, with having to rise for so many hours. It was quite nice, although the sourdough gives it a bit of a sharp taste. Here's a picture:

I wanted to get some cider as well, but the one I tried to get at the supermarket was part of a multipack and couldn't be bought separately. But I got a Thatcher's Katy cider a couple of days later instead. 

I lit a white candle in the evening, since Lammas is a fire festival.

I'd planned to go to Hove Park for sunset in the evening (like I did for Litha this year) but the weather wasn't that great, so I went the next day instead. It was a sunnier day and a nice sunset, a "gentler" one. Here are a couple of photos:

Sunset in Hove Park.

I also filmed a short video (YouTube Shorts) which you can see here: https://youtube.com/shorts/EzA7rW-ChPM?feature=share

So now we're in mid-August and have a month or so of summer left (depending on whether you go by the meterological or astronomical start of seasons). I like this time of year but I also feel a bit sad because I know autumn is coming! You can already see the shift in the length of the days, and the light changing and mellowing.

As I mentioned in my spring-summer update post, summer didn't start off that well (if you like hot weather!), but it warmed up later. It was only at the end of July that it started to feel more like summer, lol.  It was about 27C (80F) in Sussex, I think but it was hotter elsewhere.

This season can vary in the UK but we've had some unusually hot ones in the past. Back in 2018 it was said to be the hottest summer in several years. And then summer 2022 was the last time it got really hot, up to 40C (104.F) in some areas. Last Lammas I noted that it was a varied summer. Temperatures have risen this weekend again, with thunderstoms and a "heat spike" predicted for tomorrow in some parts of the UK.

The next sabbat will be Madron/Mabon aka the Autumn Equinox (22nd September this year) and the "official" start of autumn. I will do a post about my celebrations.

Hope you had a good Lammas and you're enjoying summer! (Or hope you had had a good Imbolg/Imbolc and you're enjoying winter!) :)