Christmas Greetings

I have just been for a short walk along a road near here to take these photos - these early daffodils seemed to me to epitomise the hope which Christmas brings.

The sun was shining and although it was chilly I enjoyed these few moments on my own.

Happiness comes in many forms and for me this was one of them - on my own, in a place which I love, noticing Nature at work evein alongside a busy road!

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I had earlier been listening to carols on Classic Fm and the last few lines of this one resonated with me which is why I wish you all Peace as well as happiness and hope this Christmas.  See you in the New Year!

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love-song which they bring;

Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing.

Counting down the days!

I'm counting the days - only 7 left to go.  No that is not a typing error I mean Thursday 22nd December.  Why?  I hear you ask.  Well that will be the Winter Equinox this year - the shortest day and longest night of the year.  After that the days will begin to lengthen and the mornings and evenings to become lighter.  Now that is something worth celebrating!  The above photo was taken this morning at 8.00 am - how thankful I am that I no longer have to leave the house to go to work at that time.

Same view at 4.00 pm today!

Winter Solstice is  a largely forgotten celebration coming as Christmas preparations are taking place, which all too often focus is on the commercial aspect of the festival.  The Solstice is however, the complete antithesis of the commercialised Christmas celebrations. Also known as ‘Yule’, the Solstice is generally celebrated on the 21st of December, (although the astronomical date changes from year to year – this year the actual Solstice takes place on the 22nd). It is the traditional time to celebrate the truly important things in life:  family,  children, home and looking forward to a good year to come. Surely this can tie in nicely with the Christian celebration which after all takes many of  its traditions from the pagan festival.  Yule is a time that honours love and new birth, as well as the collective unity of man. Just as Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, Yule celebrates the birth of the Sun God - child of the Goddess in the Pagan belief system. It is however primarily the celebration of the rebirth of the Sun and I can't see why, whatever your religious persuasion, this cannot be a time for celebration especially for us living in the northern hemisphere where the lack of sunlight at this time of year is so depressing.  It seems to me that religion is not a one size fits all sort of thing and I don't see why we shouldn't pick and mix taking those aspects of other religions which appeal to us as individuals and incorporating them with our own religious beliefs.  I am sure there will be some who throw up their hands in horror at my suggestion but I am going to celebrate the shortest day and Christmas!!

Thank you all for you kind comments on previous posts - all much appreciated.  I now have an appointment for 25th January when I will discover the results of my scan.

Me again!

Once again I must begin by thanking you all for your kind thoughts and comments - all much appreciated.

I had my scan done on Wednesday but needless to say no results were given and I now have to wait to see the opthalmologist at the hospital in Yeovil again for her to tell me what if anything has been found and who knows when that might be.  I am glad to say that the problem is not as bad as it was and most days I am OK now.  I am also glad to say my virus has pretty much gone now and I am feeling like my usual self and not so tired or depressed.  End of health bulletin!!

I have been lurking round blogland occasionally and reading a post here and there but I have realised just how much time I had been giving to blogging and am resolved to cut back on both posting and reading and commenting. According to Blogger I follow over 100 blogs and I have 169 followers - now in real life I wouldn't/couldn't correspond regularly with that number of people and so I think I must reduce it all a bit otherwise nothing else gets done. 

I haven't been taking many photographs lately and have nothing exciting to show you but these are from a walk I did with a friend on 18 November. It was the first real walk I had done since the start of my cold 4 weeks earlier and boy was I glad when we reached the pub where we had left our cars and we went inside for a pub lunch and a nice sit down!  Those sheep in photo 2 saw my friend opening the map and I think they thought it might be a feed bag as they made a bee line for us only to be disappointed when they discovered we had nothing to eat!