Imbolg 2023

Last Thursday (2nd Feb) it was Imbolg (more commonly known as Imbolc). Some people celebrate from sundown on 1st Feb to sundown on the 2nd, or on 31st January, but I usually have my celebration on the 2nd. As I said in my Happy Imbolg! post, I normally make pancakes for this sabbat, and this year I made oatmeal pancakes again. I used this recipe from Don't Waste the Crumbs: https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/oatmeal-pancakes/

They were quite nice as usual, but they fell apart a bit this time! They were more solid last year. Never mind, lol. Here's a pic:

 

 

I had them with some Fever Tree Sicilian lemonade.

In the evening I lit a white candle, since Imbolg is a fire festival, and also because the light is continuing to grow (after the shortest day on Yule/the Winter Solstice). I also lit a candle in the evening on "Imbolg Eve" (or the beginning of Imbolg, depending on your viewpoint) aka 1st February. It was a Snowflake Kisses pink Yankee candle that I got for Christmas.

Here's a photo of the white candle:

 

I also made some hot chocolate in the evening, based on this recipe for champurrado (thick Mexican hot chocolate): https://www.thetexmexmom.com/champurrado-thick-mexican-hot-chocolate/

It wasn't authentic Mexican hot chocolate because I didn't use the Abeulita chocolate tablets. They aren't readily available here in the UK but I think you can buy them online. I used a mixture of Green and Blacks and Bournville chocolate instead (I don't like really dark chocolate!). The recipe requires corn starch, so I used corn flour which is basically the British equivalent.

It was quite nice, a bit thinner than the hot chocolate I usually make, because there was no cream or condensed milk. But maybe I should have used more corn flour. Nice flavour though.

I had planned to go to the park for sunset on Imbolg but didn't get there in the end. So, I was going to go the next day instead, but the weather wasn't very nice. There were several dull days where there wasn't really a sunset, but finally today the weather was better, so I went today instead. 

I did take a couple of pictures at sunset on the 1st (as I mentioned, some people celebrate at sundown then). Here's one: 

 

Sunset in Shoreham-by-sea on "Imbolg Eve"/start of Imbolg.

 

And here are a couple of photos from the park from the park today: 

 

Sunset in Buckingham Park, Shoreham-by-sea.

So now we're moving towards spring, although we've still got quite a lot of winter to go yet. I mentioned last week that I hadn't seen any daffodils yet. I did see some today though. The weather had been warmer at the start of the year but we had a cold snap again in mid-January. At the moment it's gone a bit warmer again, about 9C (48F) and dropping to 0C (32F) at night. In the UK we get some of our coldest weather in February sometimes, so you never know what it's going to do! 

The next sabbat will be Oestara/Ostara aka the Spring Equinox (20th March this year), which is the "official" start of spring. I will do a post with celebration ideas and as I said before, it will probably be my last one of sabbat inspiration/celebration ideas posts for now, since I don't want to keep covering the same ground. But I plan to keep writing about my own celebrations and if I feel inspired to write more inspiration posts, I will. :) 

Hope you had a good Imbolg/Imbolc! (Or Lammas if you're in the Southern Hemisphere.) :) 

P.S. Here's some inspiration for mid-late winter (or if it's summer for you, click here:

In my Imbolg 2020 post I shared links to my winter themed posts, plus inspiration for Pancake Day (scroll to the bottom): https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2020/02/imbolg-2020.html*

Post sharing frugal late winter recipes (Homespun Seasonal Living): https://homespunseasonalliving.com/frugal-late-winter-recipes/ 

Video about how to embrace winter, from Kay of Living the life you love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqozKMTK8JU

 

*Pancake Day is 21st February this year.