WITH Easter Monday falling on April Fool's Day, we can be forgiven for thinking that Someone On High is playing a prolonged and decidedly unfunny trick on us.

Shivering through the first days of spring is bad enough - and six days into the season I was snowed on twice in one day while taking the dog for a walk, the first occasion involving flakes dropping from a seemingly clear blue early morning sky.

But Easter Monday on April 1? Given the meteorological context, it feels like the aforementioned Someone is having a laugh.

I have spoken to several fellow dog walkers who, as the Bank Holiday weekend approached, were beginning to regret a decision to head off with their caravans in tow for a bit of an early break.

Easter is too early this year, they seemed to be implying, as if that, rather than the weather, were the problem.

But the weather aside, they have something of a point. Easter is just too damned unpredictable.

One year it can be toward the end of March, the next in mid- or late April. So why?

I've looked into this, and I am confused. There is much discussion of Gregorian and Julian calendars, of the vernal equinox, of the Jewish passover, the Council of Nicaea, the Quartodecimans...

What is clear is that as early as the end of the second century AD, some Christian churches were celebrating Easter on different dates, depending on interpretation of when Jesus' death and resurrection occurred, in relation to the Passover.

Whether the Gregorian calendar or the Julian calendar - the latter still used by some Orthodox Christian churches - is followed, Easter remains a moveable feast.

It appears that the first attempt to regulate the movement of Easter was made in 325AD by the Council of Nicaea, a bishopy gathering of robes and incredible headgear - think the Senedd in Cardiff Bay, with a bit more pomp and circumstance.

It established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon falling on the vernal equinox, which was estimated for future reference as March 21.

If however, the full moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter is delayed a week to reduce the chances of it happening on the same day as the Jewish Passover.

This was not acceptable however, to the Quartodecimans, a Christian group that insisted on celebrating based on a different calculation of dates.

And so it has seemingly been ever since - a variety of interpretations of Easter, celebrated on a variety of dates, that can vary every year.

Every now and then, as with this year, when the weather is inconveniently incompatible with folks' holiday plans, or seasonal events get affected by the weather because Easter is deemed too early, we have a collective moan and wonder why Easter isn't on the same date every year.

But actually the means is there, in UK law, to make it so.

The Easter Act of 1928 was established to allow Easter to be set as the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April.

On that basis, Easter this year would be Sunday April 14, a full two weeks on. Given the way winter is clinging on, there is no guarantee it will be warmer then, but the Act would restrict Easter Sunday to falling between April 9-15, rather than March 22-April 25 as at present.

But the Act has never been implemented, probably because members' religious views have prevented the House of Commons and the House of Lords agreeing to it.

Whatever the pros and cons, there is one thing about Easter that remains constant - the eggs will still taste delicious, secularly packaged or otherwise. Something agreeable to chew on perhaps, while pondering the peculiarities of the Easter calendar.

Community can keep library alive

MOVES to keep Newport's Stow Hill library open as a community-run facility are to be welcomed as an attempt to reduce the effect of cuts in public services across the city.

The difficult decisions faced by Newport city council in balancing its books have provoked much heated debate, but this initiative deserves to succeed, and if the 1,000-signature petition collected in the cause of keeping the library open is an accurate measure, there should be no shortage of people keen to get involved.

Not all such institutions slated for closure or cutbacks will be suitable for such intervention, either in Newport or elsewhere.

But with leisure, community and arts services in particular set to bear the brunt of cutbacks in this and future years, such community-based intervention has a vital role to play.

Hopefully, the council can in this case find a way of helping make this happen.