People born on a leap year were celebrating their first birthday in four years at the weekend.
Scores of people that were born on February 29 — known as ‘leaplings’ or ‘leapers’ — made the most of the weekend to mark the occasion.
A leap year – also known as an intercalary year or a bissextile year – contains an additional day to keep the calendar year synchronised with the astronomical year.
Astronomical events and seasons do not repeat in a whole number of days and calendars that have the same number of days in each year drift over time with respect to the event that the year is supposed to track.
By adding an additional day the drift can be corrected.
Cowie woman Elaine Norris was just one person marking her birthday on Saturday.
Elaine, a mother and foster mother and grandmother, was born on February 29, 1964.
“All my life I have had my birthday on February 28, unless it’s a leap year. I get to have a real birthday this year. I will be 14,” she joked.
She added: “I’m not sure about other leap years but I definitely feel the difference when my real birthday comes around, even the family makes it different for me.”
Fallin youngster Nilah McMeechan was also celebrating. Nilah was born on February 29, 2016. Mum Abigail says that she usually marks her birthday, on March 1, with family and friends but this year she was having a nice party at her grandfather’s house.
Matthew Dawson, from Riverside, was born on February 29, 2000. Matthew, who works as a lifeguard at The PEAK, normally celebrates his birthday on March 1 when he goes for dinner with his family.
Thomas Murphy, from Tillicoultry, was born on February 29, 1992 and usually marks his birthday on February 28.
February 29 has also become a traditional day for women to propose to a man.
Allegedly, a 1288 law set by Queen Margaret of Scotland ordered that fines be levied against a man who refused a woman’s marriage proposal. Compensation was deemed to be a pair of leather gloves, a single rose, £1 and a kiss.
