6 Days to Boxing Day. Always carry Christmas Lights in your heart.
When are you most happy?
6 Days to Boxing Day. Winter Solstice. The shortest Day. From here,in the Northern Hemisphere the days will start to stretch out. I couldn’t be happier.
And so to U in 26 Days to Boxing Day. As I sit here this morning I am a little flummoxed about which U I should use to natter about. A cheating woman would use Ule but then I would be stuck for Y.
Umbrella. Not exactly a festive word but from the photo above. You can see we needed one last night.
But what is the point if the umbrella obscures the Christmas lights. Better to be damp and enlightened. Or always carry Christmas lights in your heart. Or at the very least, under your umbrella.
A brighter shade of greige.An unexpected hour of Sunshine presented itself in the middle of a very greige day. The dogs and I just walked and walked. Half of the above picture was our slightly wooded walk which I played with to suggest two options with a magical feel. I also warmed up the sun a little in my pictures of the Hamoaze.
No reason to do this at all really, so clearly done for fun.
And so to T for 26 Days to Boxing Day. T is for time travel.
This new Blue Plaque is about 500 yards from my house. If I could time travel and meet him in a cafe. We could talk about his old School. Dulwich College in London which I am very familiar with. I could also of course warn him to be extra cautious on his last fateful expedition to Antarctica.But that could change the world in so many ways. Which is why Time Travel is not advised. Another observation is that Devon and Cornwall have a Polar Society! How niche is that.
8 days to Boxing Day. All Christmas cards are off on their journeys. The foreign ones are being tracked by the Post Office App. I am travelling vicariously with them as the cards slowly venture across countries and continents to my friends and family. Locally, me and the dogs had a fabulous morning doing a walking tour and delivering all the nearby, by-hand ones. Nearly three hours of walking in the wintery sun and nattering to people along the way. The afternoon was already well established by the time I got home. Yesterday and today’s tinkering with an unfinished painting accidentally created next year’s Christmas card. Tinkering indoors was a good thing to do to avoid really grotty weather
Work in progress
Let it snow, even though snow is fairly unusual in Cornwall where this fictional scene is set.
And so on to S in 26 Days to Boxing Day. Snow.
A snowy environment suits Lola’s colouring . Hugo is inclined to look a little grubby.
These are old pictures maybe 5 years or so. I am a theoretical lover of snow . In the mild south west of England snow is rarely this picture perfect. Dirty slush is the most likely iteration here and that is no one’s idea of picturesque.
10 days to Boxing Day. Most of my life the next day or even the next hour is not quite as I pictured it. This prompt so perfectly fitted my day yesterday I felt compelled to answer.
This shadowy image reflected in a glitterball bauble should not have been standing here. Nana , Nona and our Monday Small Person had planned to be at a festive book reading event. An hour before this we were half an hour early and were enjoying good coffee and weak sunshine. In fact we were one whole week and a half hour early. What to do with that suddenly available two hours of time. The answer was to go Christmas Shopping. Not a concept that a 2 year old fully grasps. She did fine and we were surprisingly effective. We rewarded ourselves for unplanned shopping with unplanned Christmas film watching. Not the day I pictured at all.
And so to Q on the 26 Days to Boxing Day. Q is for Queen.
I am not particularly a Monarchist but I feel the cranky, eccentric, British system of a Royal Family works better than many Democracies with a Presidential figurehead. Our last Monarch was Queen Elizabeth II. Her reign of nearly 71 years was the longest in history. And there is a link to the festive season.
Postboxes , which most of us will use to send Christmas Cards.
British Post boxes are sturdy things and are marked with the reigning Monarchs Cypher at the time they were installed. Post Boxes are very long lasting.
Queen Victoria reigned for 63 years. So these two long lived womens’ Cyphers mark almost 80% of all the post boxes in Britain, six Kings , King Edward II, Edward III George V, George VI, George VII, and Charles III, get the remaining 20%.
King Charles seems to only have 1 post box installed in July 2024.
So for the forseeable future Christmas Cards in Britain will be posted in Queenly Cyphered post boxes. Random fact, unimportant but interesting.
1936- 52 George VI PostboxFestive Topper on a postbox.
I’ve heard many of the things people say about me. Of course I focus on the unkind, inaccurate and cruel because I am, a woman, a people pleaser and a human. The same can be said for the kind and thoughtful comments. I question if they are deserved, maybe those comments are inaccurate too. I realise that these statements make me sound like a swirling ball of angst but in the spirit of the festive season I will share the gift of wisdom my dad gave me a long while ago.
” You don’t have to be the best or the cleverest, but you do have to turn up”
Goodness knows what fire of teenage drama he was trying to quench when he came out with that nugget of sagacity but I have carried it happily as both my top and bottom line of behaviour. Of course I have learned to twist that sentence to both my advantage and disadvantage.
I am hopeless at over-committing and turning up too often. But conversely I have sometimes ‘turned up’ and unexpectedly scooped the prize.
Somehow, and I don’t really know why it has given me a level of immunity to what people say about me. I don’t really have too much expectation in that regard.
“She turned up” will do just fine.
And so onto N in the 26 Days to Boxing Day.
Nativity.
I have no idea why I am such a pedant about Nativity scenes in public spaces but the storyline of a Christian Christmas is that the run up is all about hope and expectation. Until Christmas morning there is no baby in the manger…
On a personal level this pedantry has bitten me on the bum. Imagine a working mother of two,staggering home after a long working day at 11pm on Christmas Eve. Everyone is asleep. One job before morning is to put Jesus in his manger.
Where is Jesus?
Frantic searching of nearby shelves and book cases. No luck.
The next hour is spent crafting a swaddled baby of tiny proportions out of a cotton wool ball, a Qtip or Cotton bud. Finger gauze and nail varnish.
I’ve been asked why I am counting down to Boxing Day . Just to be a little different really, and 26 is conveniently the number of letters in the alphabet. So I can have two running themes. A countdown and a letter to hang a ponder on.
In trying to extract maximum enjoyment out of short days I have been greatly helped by the gradual build up of festive lighting and by making sure I get some effective reading time. This gem of writing from Virginia Woolf came my way yesterday.
Devonport ParkDevonport Park
I think even great prose benefits from some Festive lighting.
And so to 26 Days to Boxing Day.
M has to be for Music. Traditional, Random, Contemporary, Pogues.
I did not expect to create a painting today. I did not expect to go to a biker cafe. I did not expect to be writing this blog at 5pm. But beyond that the day has gone completely to plan. A regular meet up with other Plymouth based arty people for nattering, exhibition planning and festive high points.
Usually, I can easily paint and talk but Santa was not the most unusual man in the cafe. A gentleman approached to talk about my art for about 45 seconds and then talked about himself for the next minutes. Even my absolute dedication to getting paint on paper didn’t stem his flow of self-obsession. I was polite and responded appropriately while avidly painting away.
But my mind was a bit fried by the time he wandered off. Thank goodness for the impromptu arrival of a friend, we escaped to a nearby bikers cafe. No chance of self obsessed artists there.
And so to 26 Days to Boxing Day . L for learning . Actually the point of our arty gatherings. We sit together and do small tasks but we share tips and techniques. Artists are by inclination and practice solitary creatures. But our regular meetings over the past two and a half years has created such a strong and effective group of solitary beings. Sometimes 25 of us.
March 2022December 2024
And guess what? I was painting with the same colours at our first get together.
Wintering. There is a plethora of good vibe articles about learning to love short and wintery days. I have never been a fan of West Country winters. I love the crisp cold winters of London, the South Coast and East Anglia. But I have chosen to make my life in Devon and Cornwall, places where the winter is warmer wetter and unrelentingly greige. Wintering positively is something I aspire to. Book reading and twinkling lights are an easy boost.
Yesterday afternoon and this morning I attempted to record my greige reality. Another alleged way of boosting the love for winter.
Dusk.Early morning.
I can’t say that simply recording these images felt particularly positive. But using my randomly generated AI photo editing made the evening pictures a much more positive experience. For some reason the morning ones remained resolutely dull.
Dull morning manipulations.
The dusk shot was a revelation of different interpretations.
Festival Campsite.Winter scene.MoonlightBright winter day.
I am intrigued by the difference between morning and afternoon photographs. It has to do with the position of the sun and which direction I am facing. West is best. I tried to create some interesting images from the morning shot, but it was not to be. The afternoon shot just kept giving fabulous manipulated images. Which certainly inspires me. My wintering, late afternoon walks with the dogs can include some greige photography as long as I face westward. I already feel perkier about the post 4 pm walk.
26 Days to Boxing Day.
K is for Kindness which we should all aspire to particularly during the festive season.
Another K is for Keith, my Dad who was always a kind, generous and open minded man. 30 Christmases without him seems like a mad number.
I often wonder if Keith is one of those names that might get lost in the future. It is a strong Scottish name meaning wood but I cannot image it ever being trendy . I have never known a nasty Keith. They are rare but always lovely in my experience.
I am not a habitual list-maker. There is a constant rolling list of lists in my head and there are random notes in a paper diary.
Midway through December the paper diary becomes more and more two diaries, both bulky, that need to be referred to.
A morning of admin both personal and Tennis Club has required the two diaries, my smart phone and my laptop. 4 things ! Plus my brain.
Seasonal lists will start to appear in the 2024 diary in the run up to Christmas. Whilst walking the dogs at lunchtime I will consider which lists need to be transcribed onto paper from my swirling thoughts later this afternoon.
And so on to J on 26 Days to Boxing Day.
I rather like the letter J. It may be the first letter I learned to write as it starts my first name.
Both my children have a J. Jays encourage a flourish. Jays feel like happiness they make me smile. Some lovely words start with a jay.
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