Goodbye to January

is not of course goodbye to Winter but it may be hello to the first signs of Spring. Our birds think so anyway!

Then there's
Groundhog Day/Candlemass -- 2nd when I always remember the groundhog we saw at Blue Mounds Minnesota in 2012 :)

Valentine's Day -- 14th -- Steak -- Chateauneuf du Pape -- heart shaped biscuits
Shrove Tuesday -- 17th -- Pancakes of course
Chinese New Year -- 19th -- Sweet n Sour Duck -- it's the Year of the Green Sheep apparently -- couldn't find any of those yet but maybe there will be some on the day ;)

leaves begin to sprout

catkins are out

snowdrops proliferate and crocuses and daffs are sure to follow  -- if not quite yet.

and anyway there are flowers to be had at Wallington and Belsay 

in any season

outdoors in season and indoors out of season

So January wasn't such a bad month after all

And I am looking forward to February -- a little jewel of a month :) and to reading Poetry for The Linnet's Wings which is open for SUBMISSIONS 1st-14th February.

A Lucky Escape

It seemed like a good idea at the time to have this box arrangement in the garden.

But the prevailing wind is westerly and the trellis faced NW so it acted as the perfect target and last time the wind knocked it over.

This time what with all the wind and rain the wood had rotted. The rubber ties just snapped and when Noel went out to fix it he had a fortunate escape. 

He was on the windward side about to put on new ties as a temporary measure, when the thing broke off and fell away from him onto the slates.

And we are just happy that it's the box that broken and not NOEL!

We may reuse the trellis somewhere else in the garden but perhaps wind direction should be a consideration?

January -- I LOVE BELSAY

New Year? -- Oh Dear!

Down with the decorations. Our tree is having one last night before it goes for its long sleep and the place looks fairly bare. And New Year? Well despite all this great advice -- very entertaining book Kathleen :) XX

 

I didn't have a drink! 

I was sound asleep in bed as Big Ben belted out its annual message to just another day. Meanwhile people were being crushed to death over a money scramble, dying of bad drugs, fighting for their lives in hospitals, being born, working all nighters, mourning loved ones, making love, crying out for help, partying and lunching upside down in Australia...

...okay that's getting silly but you know what I mean.

The morning news was a cold awakening. The sad thing is that when we are all supposed to be making merry that's the very time it can't be done which inevitably leads to 

that empty feeling.

Feelings of inadequacy, failure to be in the swim, failure to find that HIGH of Happitude that all the world expects. 

What pressure! What seasonal cruelty we put on ourselves and others to endure!

Sound asleep in bed, albeit not feeling too well, was a very good place to be.

Today confirmed that emptiness when we went to our local little town for a walk and found that a lot of the shops were in the process of restocking after Christmas -- or selling off tat. They had an empty look -- blank windows where the decorations used to be, depleted shelves, staff with that post holiday palor. 

A squall of cold January sleet soon drove us back home and I couldn't help thinking how miserable it must be, after the warmth of Christmas, not to have a home to go to, a cup of tea, a hot meal and how it is that the Christmas spirit drains so quickly down the gutters of a new year...

Let your New Year Resolution be

just a Little KINDNESS every day.

Celebrating the successes of an Old Year

I had a lovely e-mail today which read:

You are among the 25 authors whose prose or poetry has been selected for the 2014 Mariner Awards.  As our Annual Review says, "The 40 titles listed — out of 304 for the year — are the ones that the Review Board has rated most highly in 2014. They have earned Bewildering Stories’ most signal honor."

There are TWO of them :)
Bewildering Stories has passed it's 600th Issue and I so proud to be part of that!

Christmas was properly but if anything, modestly celebrated here at Chateau Joslin with pork, apple, roast vegetables, sprouts (of course), individual Xmas puds, Alnwick rum butter and cream. Didn't have room for coffee but I had been basically pigging out for the past three weeks so no kudos there.
The presents were lovely and we spoke with family and friends. Special thanks to Kath and Jim way over there in Minneapolis for your call 
and emails from afar too, Jody Costa, Amy Corbin and Jane Vandenburg.

Apparently there is SNOW in some parts. It was frosty for the past few nights but no snow here and the frost is all gone too. Sometimes the NE is milder than the SW. This IS BRITAIN!!! Here in the garden there are still roses and a couple of other hangers on, despite a recent frost.

I have a poem today in PPandP -- a true story of lost love Ahhhh! In fact that is my third 'garden' based poem there -- coincidentally. So here you go: 

Pretty poems all in a row.
AGNESENGA

Liaison at Dusk  

Doomed Love 
 




As you make your New Year Resolutions, remember the first one should be to be KINDER and more POSITIVE. 

'cos what's the point of being skinny if you're beastly and MEAN?

Food for Thought for Friday -- Happy Yule

The Wassail cup -- a libation for apple trees

filling the house with scents of

gold, frankinsence, 

bay, holly, ivy, mistletoe, oak; 

the Yule Log that burns brightly for 12 days

 or the chocolate log that lasts 12 minutes :)

However you celebrate the Winter Solstice

this weekend sees the turn of the season 

and the last Sunday of Advent all at once.

so CELEBRATE 

Nothing to do with polar bears -- I just like him!

Thought for Friday -- Five Armies and lot more

A lot more of the same that is... I wasn't expecting a great deal from the last of the Hobbit films; just over-egging. I got what I expected and a couple of laughs but the best scenes were not the big action stuff and this is where all of these films fell down. All I ever wanted was that STORY and instead in my opinion Jackson lost the plot in prolonged battle scenes, cold elf eyes and protracted plots. And this one disappointed me in another way too -- there was no tune I could 'hum as I left the cinema' as Tom Lehrer put it in Oedipus Rex. So that as they say is that and I for one am quite glad it's over. If I saw one more Legi moment or another cave troll or 'mercenary goblin' whatever that is... I would get serious latex costume cramp.

By all means go and see it but don't say I didn't tell you so -- and there are two lines worth the laugh :) and a couple of nicely acted scenes amongst the CG HooHaa.

Baah! Humbug!