in absentia

Yes I do see how Instagram lures

one away from the blog.

It's so breezy and bite-sized.

Even on a dodgy phone with a broken screen that has to be jabbed

multiple times in order to 'share',

it still wins hands down over the old computer for immediacy.

Mac struggles to load photos to Blogger in under an hour.

I have to take myself off to while away the time more profitably

and then completely lose my train of thought.

So in the absence of a coherent narrative,

I'm going for colour graduation,

because this autumn has been all about

the most spectacular colour changes

and dramatic skies.

Much to be thankful for.

Spending Christmas

The tree -

pricey Fraser fir but it smells lovely and hasn't dropped any needles.

 Advent windows - small charge for a map.

Waldorf stars - this year with the right paper,

waxed translucent coloured squares all the way from San Diego.

Sunrise.

Sunset. 

Free gifts.

Waking too early

Waking at 5.30 Frances took her camera to the deck to photograph

 daybreak on a tiny Canadian West Coast island.

I stayed in bed, listened to 

Something Understood's A Walk in the Woods,

and caught this hauntingly beautiful piece

as I drifted back to sleep.

Revisiting other dawns:

 If you wake early, what do you do?

It's beginning to look a bit like

A perfect dawn.

Time to see off this beastly bug for good.

The leaking coolant pipe in the car has been fixed

(yes that was the third thing),

the meat has been collected,

the veg box delivered,

the cake has been iced,

the Advent windows admired,

cards and twinkly lights,

are disposed about the house.

O. has made a huge batch of seething sourdough

and I have cracked open

the Quality Street.

Interesting how much smaller the old tins were.

And finally the orange pastry recipe for mince pies
from my  'well used' Josceline Dimblebey book.
I hope you can read it Frances.

Not getting the rays

We had thirteen minutes and fourteen seconds

more daylight today than on December 21st.

It's painfully slow progress.

I'm not feeling the benefit yet.

In fact I am feeling more seasonally disaffected than ever.

On the other hand it was spookily warm this morning

 at 6.30 on the way to the station.

My new thermometer had blown off the wall of course

but it read 12.5º C under a clear starry sky.

Meanwhile I read of a wind chill of -50ºF in Wisconsin 

and boiling water turning to snow when thrown from the pan.

Three minutes

from this

to this.

Really it was a stern discipline for me

 to stand still for that long,

while the sun hoisted itself from the sea.

And that is why I have posted all the pictures,

to remind myself when I am driving

down the long road to this place,

stupidly watching the journey elapsed time 

ticking over at each slight traffic queue

and thinking that it has taken three minutes 

longer than my 'best' time,

while cursing the driver who hogs my tail

waiting to overtake,

only to be stopped at a traffic light 

inches ahead from me a moment later,

 that there is just no need to hurtle through the day

as though the hounds of Hell are on our backs.

For what are we going to do with that three minutes 'saved'?

Except perhaps, cause an accident on a blind bend,

or at a jumped light, or a junction misjudged.

The sun will continue to rise in its own good time.

It would be a pity not to be there to see it.