-
I need to spend a day, or maybe two, dealing with loose ends.

I will start by making the apology I made in December 2014!

Then I will try to think of a way to make it less tedious - Make it fun, it will get done and all that

Any ideas? All I've got at the moment is a sinking feeling...

I did add a little red to my decorations and that perked me up a little...

I felt lucky to get to the annual Click Sargent charity concert in the city  (start of Christmas proper, a heartwarming event)  and to get home again as winds of 47mph and heavy rain are causing some travel problems.

Dressing for the ferry,/bus, dinner, a concert, a party and an overnight stay is something of a challenge too!

Layers, of course. I bought this dress from COS and think it will serve me well for the season and beyond. It's wool and cotton.

I can wear it with a necklace (also from COS a few years ago) grey tights and my party shoes or with a big warm scarf, jeans and thermals underneath and my blue Fly shoes or boots.

Poor photograph - the scarf is navy and the shoes brgiht blue!

I bought this gift in the Christmas Market . IWouldn't it look lovely as a table centre with a large pillar candle in the centre?

Definitely getting in the festive mood now.  Are you?

Gold coins (chocolate!) spilled out of a mystery parcel as I unwrapped it. There inside the tissue paper were cinnamon sticks, tiny wooden trees. stickers and these Swedish Angel Chimes. As the cherubs spin merrily around in the heat from the candles they make the sweetest tiniest tinkling sound.

I put out the lights to enjoy it better and it made me think of simpler times when this might be the main, or even only ornament in a simple home apart from branches of pine or a small tree from the forest, and perhaps some paper stars...It may have been made by a family member and passed down through the family. It may have only been lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day itself.

After the excesses of the city lights (and I do enjoy the city lights) this unexpected gift made me want to make my own Christmas this year even simpler.

Thank you M!

I thought I would adopt Julia's idea and put out one Christmas decoration each day.. I think Cath does this too.

..to Barry.

Everyone grieves differently. I know that it is a great comfort to some people to talk to the person they loved as though they were still alive.

I did this for a while, and just occasionally I still do, but for me it wasn't helpful really. I think it stopped me from fully accepting that my husband had died and that I never would speak to him or see him again. It just seemed to me to accentuate the awful pain of that fact, and I knew I needed to say goodbye.

A day or two after the discovery of the poem (see previous post) I saw this in a museum shop and thought Barry would love that. I was in a rush for the bus home from the city but when I woke next morning I knew I had to go back and look at it. It's from Greece, made of crushed marble and very heavy, and painted a brilliant lime green. It fits beautifully in my hand.

It's my farewell gift to Barry and sits at his side of the bed.

A few weeks ago, on a day when I was missing him particularly badly, I found  a page torn from a notebook with a poem written on it in Barry, my late husband's handwriting.  Because of where I found it I know it must have passed through my hands since he died in February 2016, but somehow it didn't register with me then.

This is the poem, by Mary Elizabeth Frye. I expect many of you know it

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you waken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

It felt like a timely gift from him.

Just a day or two later I cnanced upon this poem by Rumi

I died as a mineral
and became a plant
I died as a plant
and rose to animal
I died as animal
and I was human
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?

Barry's ashes are scattered here where daisies grow and on the shore with flocks of birds all around, and on the day of gentle autumn rain when I wrote this post, these poems comforted me.

...this December.  Christmas approaches and I've browsed through some of my earliest Christmas posts and got very nostalgic about the Christmas Tree Parties we used to have! See here and  here.

Inner -  Christmas is very different now. The family got bigger and bigger and the house stayed the same size so our main get-together is now is a Midsummer Picnic when we can spread out to the garden and the beach.,

I am looking for wrapping paper that I like. My sister made her own one year and was rather pleased with it until seven year old Paige said - Oh, you ran out of Christmas paper! when she received her present. You can't please them all..

Small gifts and big donations has been my habit for many years now, and family and friends know my minimalist tendencies! If you are not happy with giving and receiving too much unwanted stuff, perhaps it's time to have those tactful but honest conversations?

Outer -   I do buy cards (love sending cards!) and paper and some gifts from charities at Christmas. It's win win in my view though you might want to do some research into exactly how the charities benefit.

Winter would be longer and harder without Christmas to look forward to.

This is the only December 2019 I will ever have. There is a climate crisis, weather to contend with, and here in uk a terrorist attack and an election fill the airwaves and newspaapers with  disbelief  and  angry words.

How, we might wonder can we have a great December?
 
I think if we spend most of our energy on managing the things we do have control of and thereby creating little oases of peace and sanity and even joy, we can help balance our lives and the lives of others too.

I have limited influence, but I plan to use what influence I have!

I am thinking inner and outer. My inner world - my menatl health, my home, my loved ones and the outer - the wider world of politics and civic duty and responsibility.

If you wanted to do a comprehensive plan for December the book Your Best Year Yet by Jinny Ditzer could give you a useful framwork, but I thought I'd take it more lightly here, and try to look at small and simple things I can do each day to make December happy and healthy and with regular sparks of joy both for me and for others.

Inner.  I started the day with six rounds of Wim Hof breathing (I like New Slower Wim Hof on YotTube) - makes me feel full of energy, and today I'm checking that I am stocked up with things should the weather worsen.

Logs - tick, firelighters and matches - tick, tinned food and storecupboard items - tick, salt for icy paths, snow shovel accesible - tick,  torches and batteries - need to look at, candles - tick, thermals - tick (Heat Gen clever fabrics are brilliant). The freezer is seriously depleted. I've never really got on top of meal planning...plenty here to keep me busy then. What would you add? Have I overlooked something vital?

Outer -   Planning a letter to the local paper about public transport connections. I have too often watched my bus fly past just just as the ferry touched land!

What will you do today to make your December happy and healthy?

Do share! I and so many readers here have got great ideas from all the comments.
 

I love looking after my little robin in the cold weather.

..continued..

No comfortable feel in any member? Well my toes tingled after my frosty walks

There was shade, or at least interesting shadows..

And some starshine and brilliantly starry nights - the kind that take your breath away.

True, there were no butterflies or bees but fruits aplenty

and flowers and leaves in coronation Wood,....

and birds, including my favourite

Thank you for your poem Thomas Hood.
It reminded me that November was pretty wonderful.

Quick! Review your November before it fades forever.

And if your November wasn't very good, it's maybe worth  taking just a little time to figure what you can do to make December better.....
because here it is!

I heard this poem by Thomas Hood read out on radio 3 the other morning..

No sun - no moon
!No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

Now I can identify with that (though for me it's more  representative of February) but the optimist in me - or is it the contrarain? - thought I've had a good November with probably most of those things in it and I looked back over November's photographs and came up with...

Quite a lot of sunshine! And a beautiful new moon (but no photo)

Morning coffee on a frosty table

And raking up leaves at noon.

Dawn captured in a beautiful shot by Heather

And a dusk walk on the shore path.

A beautiful dusk skyline in Christmassy Edinburgh

Warmth from stacking them, carrying them and burning them!

And cheerfulness and healthful ease in a pop-up bar in Edinburgh's Christmas Market

And this is taking so long I will have to finish it next time!

I hope you had a good November x

Grand, but welcoming and not too expensive for a light lunch. Today is the first time I have been in here and I am thinking what a great place to wait for a train, or to meet someone. I could get used to this!

A great little Ted Talk here.

Would you agree?

Can you apply her three steps to change something you want to change?

What wakens you every morning?

This morning I awoke to the sound of two angry men in London shouting right in my ear about politics (radio alarm).

Given that I was in a lovely cottage in the peaceful Highland town of Narin on the Moray Firth this seemed incongruous, and disturbing if not downright insane! (Sorry C!)

I resolved to always switch off someone else's alarm and on the long journey home I tried all the different sounds on my phone alarm to find the most delightful and uplifting. It is called twinkle. :-) Sounds corny I know but at least it makes me smile. Call me idealistic but I want to start my day gently - ideally silent or to the sound of birdsong, but when I have to use an alarm I will make sure it is my own.

My first venture into candle making.

This is the huge leftover lump of wax from the wildly expensive candle  (The White Company) last Christmas. It wouldn't burn any further and I couldn't bear to throw it out so wrapped it tightly in a plastic bag and put it in the back of a cupboard. It still smells absolutely fabulous so the plan is to melt it down and make some small candles from it....

Have any of you ever done this?

..but not too much..

Red poinsettias are very popular house plants here in uk at Christmas, but I couldn't resist this mini white one from Marks and Spensers for £3.

I sat on it on the bus by accident but it bounced back!

I'd love to know if your country has a particular plant associated with Christmas..

  An AMD diagnosis is not a passport to blindness, but rather a wake up call to clean up your diet.

This is one of the headlines of an interesting seven page article in Get Well magazine.

Thank you Maggie for sending me this. So encouraging!

..to make the most of my winter.

Sixteen

Keep garedening. Pruning, tdying, weeding, raking, pottering - not leaving it all till spring.

Seventeen

Keep moving. The gardening eill help. It's all too easy for me to hibernate and barely move!

Eighteen

Make candles.

Nneteen

Travel (big plans afoot!)

Twenty

Think up a really good word for 2020.

..things I plan to do this winter.

Eleven

Do something I've never done before. No idea what yet!

Twelve

Check out when the winter meteor showers are and put them on the calendar.

Thirteen

Donate surplus Christmassy things in good time.

Fourteen

Lie in the hammock and look at the Milky Way, even if only for a minute ot two!

Fifteen

Plan menus for visitors well in advance.


Is your list coming along?

Five  

Make at least one recipe from each of these books which I bought because I loved the titles and the images. Still do, but maybe I'll love the recipes too!

Six

Go for a walk in the dark. Or on a bright moonlit night.

Seven

Find a sauna somewhere nice.

Eight

Make a north point in the snow.

Nine

Go to Scottish Ballet's production of The Snow Queen (tickets already purchased!)

Ten

Take a day 'off' to re-read Eowen Ivey's The Snow Child - preferably a snowy day. I have done this each year for several  years now - food laid in, hot drinks, no housework, pausing every now and then to watch the snow fall...