Litha 2024

On the Thursday before last (20th June) it was Litha aka Midsummer/the Summer Solstice. As I said in my Salads for Litha + Extra Ideas! post, I normally make salad and lemonade for this sabbat. 

This year I made my favourite tomato and onion salad (the recipe is from Soraya's book The Kitchen Witch). While in past years I've varied it by using red onion or a mix of brown/yellow and red onion, this time I just used brown. The lemonade is "Hello Kitty lemonade" (the recipe is from a Hello Kitty book).

I had the salad for lunch with some Dorito dippers and smashed avocado, chicken, seeded rolls, cheese and pickle, and stuffed peppers (with cheese). It was quite nice. Here's a picture: 

In the evening I went to Hove Park for sunset. I hadn't been there for ages, due to various circumstances, so it was good to go again. I went to Burger King to get a mocha coffee and a Coke and went and sat in the park. It was a nice sunset. Here are a couple of photos:

Entrance to Hove Park.

Update 18/7/24: I realised that I forgot to link to a short video I took in the park (YouTube Shorts), so here it is: https://youtube.com/shorts/xJrEW6OVTJY?feature=share

When I got back, I lit a white candle because Litha is a fire festival and it was the longest day of the year. In the past I used orange or yellow candles but have found it easier to get white ones in recent years. Here's a pic:

 

So now it's "officially" summer! I hope that we will have some nice weather this year. I've heard that it will be a wet summer though, so I don't know! lol. After some hotter weather in May, it was quite cold for the rest of spring. But it's warmed up more lately. The hottest it's been in Sussex so far (at least in my area) is 27C (80F).

Although the days are slowly starting to get shorter now, they are still long and will be for quite a while yet. Summer is my favourite season but I can put pressure on myself to enjoy it. There's a good post from Megan of Honey We're Home about having the best summer without pressurising yourself, which I'll link to below.

The next sabbat will be Lammas at the beginning of August, which is my favourite apart from Samhain. I will do a post about my celebrations. I'm also planning to write my spring-summer update next month. 

Hope you had a good Litha and Happy Summer! (Or hope you had a good Yule and Happy Winter!) :) 

P.S. Here are a couple of links with inspiration for summer: 

How to Have (the best) Summer Before It's Over: https://www.honeywerehome.com/2024/06/how-to-have-the-best-summer-before-its-over.html

In my post Salads for Litha + Extra Ideas! I shared salad recipes which would be good to make anytime during the summer: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2024/06/salads-for-litha-extra-ideas.html

 

Or if it's winter where you are, my post from last year features some links with inspiration for winter:

Autumn 2023 Photos + Winter Links: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2023/12/autumn-2023-photos-winter-links.html