A Seasonal Sensation Trivia Quiz

Answer: March

"As mad as a March hare" refers to the behaviour of hares at the start of the breeding season, when they are overexcited and can be seen leaping around, boxing each other, and generally showing off. "Hare brained" refers to the same sort of behaviour. Both sayings are very old. "Hare brained" goes back to Edward Hall's chronicle of 1548 and "Mad as a March hare" to around 1500.

Answer: April

'Chaul Chnam Thmey' is written in the Khmer language of Cambodia and literally means 'enter new year'. New Year's Day itself normally falls on the 13th or 14th of April, with the festivities continuing for three days. Despite these timings, Cambodians living outside of the country may choose to celebrate over the course of a nearby weekend as opposed to the actual dates themselves.

Answer: Easter

Easter Sunday always falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon after March 21st, so March 22nd is the earliest it can possibly be. The fact that full moons vary in date from year to year means that Easter can fall any time between March 22nd and April 25th.

Answer: May

At the point in the story where everything is going well in Camelot and Arthur and Guinevere are happy, Guinevere and the people of the court of Camelot celebrate:
"The Lusty Month of May,
That lovely month when everyone goes
Blissfully astray"

Sadly, things start to go wrong when Guinevere falls in love with Lancelot, and it all ends in tears. It's a lovely musical, written by Lerner and Loewe, originally staged in 1960 and filmed in 1967. It was adapted from the book "The Once and Future King" by T.H. White, which is based on the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Answer: In the Fens, on the Isle of Ely

The Fens are the lowest lying part of Britain, with some parts lying almost three meters below sea level. It is a vast marshy area which has been largely drained and controlled in modern times, but attempts to drain it have gone on for hundreds of years.

March, which is in the county of Cambridgeshire, is a market town and was once an important railway centre where the Great Northern railway met the Great Eastern Railway. As the Fens were drained the town was able to expand. It's situated on the banks of the old course of the River Nene, which is mainly used for pleasure boating. This is a fascinating area with many wonderful old churches, notable Ely Cathedral.

Answer: Apple blossom

The Andrews Sisters sang "(I'll Be With You) In Apple Blossom Time" in 1941 and Eddie Calvert played "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" in 1955. "(I'll Be With You) In Apple Blossom Time" was written back in 1920, and there have been numerous versions of it, including ones by Nat King Cole and Jo Stafford.

"Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White" was also recorded by Perez Prado and his orchestra, and his version reached number one on both the Billboard chart and the UK Singles Chart in 1955.

Answer: May

The lovely clear green of an emerald calls to mind the burgeoning greenery that surrounds us in May - a beautiful time of year in the Northern Hemisphere.
Diamonds are the birthstone for April, aquamarine for March and topaz for November.

Answer: April

T.S. Eliot's poem "The Wasteland" begins with the lines:

"April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land."

Written in 1922 this difficult Modernist poem contains constant shifts of speaker and scenes. It is very hard to follow as it surveys the decline of Western culture after the end of the First World War.

Answer: Daffodil

The wild daffodil, as opposed to the cultivated species, was often called the "lent lily" because it flowered around the Lenten period. The wild flower is native to much of Western Europe where it can be found in woodlands. The flower is smaller than the cultivated species, with paler outer petals.

In Britain, populations have declined due to clearance of woodlands and the taking of bulbs for use in gardens. Good displays can still be found, though, especially on the North York Moors and in various nature reserves.

Answer: Spring

All of the questions and correct answers relate to the months of Spring in one way or another. Either by being one of the months of spring or by being something that happens in spring.

Although there are no 'official' dates as such for Spring in the United Kingdom, there is a general thought that it runs from the vernal equinox of 21 March to the summer solstice on 21 June. In recent years the Meteorological Office have tended to view the first of March as the first day of spring, but as this can often find us still in the grip of snow and ice this has been greeted with some disbelief by the general public.

The common bond works as follows

Q1 - Answer March - the first part of Spring
Q2 - Answer April - a Spring month
Q3 - Answer Easter - Easter is always in one of the months of Spring
Q4 - Answer May - one of the months of Spring
Q5 - Question about March - one of the Spring months
Q6 - Answer Apple blossom - this always flowers in the spring
Q7 - Answer May - a Spring month
Q8 - Answer April - a Spring month
Q9 - Answer Daffodil - One of the best known Spring flowers

All of the above bring you to the answer to Q10 - Spring