Welcome to family, friends and visitors. Here you will find interesting (hopefully) pictures of my part of the world, news of our household and probably, long ramblings about anything that catches my interest.

Saturday 21 December 2013

Winter Solstice..

It's been dry and quite mild today. A good day for outdoor work. If Fred had turned up earlier or Peter had bought the right type of sand the new chimney would have been rendered but all Fred could do was to fix the metal beading to the edges. Oh well, it will be done eventually and then guess who will be climbing up the ladder to paint the chimney. As part of my general sorting out of the spare rooms I refreshed one wall with a coat of paint and painted a small wooden wardrobe. Once I've shifted the furniture around tomorrow I'll see if I need to paint any of the other walls. The rest of the day I spent outside and have nearly cleared one whole corner of the scree garden. I decided to work on until either it got too dark or the postman arrived, he's been getting later due to all the Christmas post. When he did come it was only business letters, how disappointing. And then it started to rain.
Today is the winter solstice, for some people the start of winter, for others (Celtic and Scandinavian cultures) today is mid-winter with winter beginning on 1st Nov, All Hallows. This is based on day length and I feel my spirits raised by the thought of a little more sun each day so I feel like celebrating mid-winter. I'm not a pagan but much of my life is spent immersed in nature and observing the changes of the seasons. In the UK meteorological winter is the 3 coldest months of the year, December, January and February. So that makes the start of winter the 1st of December.  
No sign of any snow for Christmas this year. 

No comments: