I cannot believe the first month of 2014 has already whistled away. The smalls go back to school today and life as we know it returns to status “normal”, or as normal as it gets, anyway.

And with the start of school is a busy time of year so I’m getting in early with the February calendar download so we can all be organised and on the ball for the new month.

So February, the month of love.

• Of course February is the shortest month of the year and the only month with fewer than 30 days, which means it is going to fly by even faster than normal!
• February starts on the same day of the week as March and November in common years, and on the same day of the week as August in leap years.
• The Roman month Februarius was named after the Latin term februum, which means purification, via the purification ritual Februa held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar.
•  In Finnish, the month is called helmikuu, meaning “month of the pearl”; when snow melts on tree branches, it forms droplets, and as these freeze again, they are like pearls of ice, which is a much nicer way of remembering it!
• Having only 28 days in common years, it is the only month of the year that can pass without a single full moon. This last happened in 1999 and will next happen in 2018.
• It’s Black History Month  in the US and Canada National Bird-Feeding Month in the US.
• It’s the Super Bowl on the first Sunday in the US and Groundhog Day on February 2
• Abraham Lincoln and George Washington both have birthdays in February
• Argentina marks the National Day of the Sun
• And in the UK and the US they have National Wear Red Day to show support for the awareness of heart disease.
• It’s birth flower is the violet or viola and the common primrose, it’s birthstone the amethyst.

Download the horizontal calendar / vertical calendar