Advent: Christmas Eve

An old photograph – we’ve not had a snowy Christmas for a few years.

But this is “home” and it’s prettier than the winter we’re having at the moment!

Home.

I feel so very blessed. My family are the people I love most (closely followed by my animals of course!) and I am lucky enough to have seen all of them in the past few weeks which is unusual. But the past two days as we and our neighbours have met and called on each other to exchange cards and gifts and wish each other well and see how each other are I’m reminded over and again how the people I live near are also like family to us. How much we rely on the love and goodwill of those nearby, even when our own relatives are so very far away.

We don’t make much of a festive fuss. “Things” have never really mattered that much to me. People do. The greatest joy I know is to spend time with someone I care about and enjoy their company and friendship. If that is the most precious thing someone can have then I am rich beyond measure in the people I have in my life and I am grateful to have everything I could possibly want in that. I hope I have given of myself to those who need companionship too. None of us take each other for granted but at this season when we all take the time to say “thank you for being there” to each other it cements the bonds we share. Almost like resetting us for another year of living and working together.

I know there are many without, not just at this time but all year round. More than usual, those who “have not” are more on my mind and I find myself asking if I can do more about this. So many people who do not have someone to look out for them or just to care enough to ask if they are OK. Knowing how fortunate I am to love and be loved, I want to keep this in mind for the coming year, not just at Christmas time.

Wishing you joy, peace, love and good cheer this season and for the coming year xx

Advent: December 24th

So from the distant past to the here and now:

I took this photo this afternoon; the sun was shining (for a few minutes at any rate – we’ve had rain squalls continuously!) and the wind was keen and biting as it whipped along the hedgerows and lanes.

I spotted these early daffodils a week ago on the bank by my neighbours house. I couldn’t believe they could be out so early, I’ve never seen daffodils out in December before, not here in Wales, not this high up. They should be tucked underground for a bit longer and not flowering for another 12 weeks or so. This is the only clump – maybe 7 flowers. All the rest of the verges are wintery and void of colour.

It makes me think of Wordsworths poem ‘I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud”. The last verse as he muses on the “host, of golden daffodils” he’s seen on his walk o’er hill and vale he reflects…

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

I hope that over Christmas you will get to spend holiday time with people you care about and that your heart will be filled with the pleasure of good memories from times past too, especially if this Christmas is perhaps a hard time for you. May you dance with the daffodils.

The daffodil of course is also the emblem of Wales. So from this little spot in the Welsh hills on Christmas Eve, my animals and I wish you

Nadolig Llawen!

Advent: December 23rd

This close to Christmas it’s rather nice to mull some wine or home pressed apple juice with spices and honey over the wood stove in the evening when we’ve finished work.

With the curtains drawn against the dark and cold, the flickering of the flames in the stove and the dogs quietly snoozing on their beds at last after a day of bouncing around (well, Marley bounces at any rate!), there’s something comforting about the sweet, spicy smell curling around the house to mark the beginning of evening.

I know some people prefer a nice cold beer at the end of the working day though so I thought you might like this clay hieroglyph “bar tab” for the workers from over 5,000 years ago. Some things never change!

Advent: December 22nd

This is a scene from part of the Parthenon Marbles, more commonly known as the Elgin Marbles.

Originally sculptures adorning the Parthenon and other buildings at the Acropolis, these sections now reside in a specially built part of the British Museum. They were removed from Greece at the beginning of the 19th century by Lord Elgin for which he was criticised at the time and much controversy still surrounds them now.

This piece attracted my attention because of the cow, it’s stance and the beauty of the detailing over the muscles and folds of skin on it. I’m always fascinated by the way that sculptors of hard stone can make the unyielding surface look soft and alive with working with tools of cold metal. According to the notes it is said to have inspired John Keats poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn”.

Advent: December 21st

The shortest day. At last! It was almost the first thought I had when I woke this morning – thank goodness the days will start to lengthen from today. The slow, steady uphill climb to spring, to warmth, to light, to hope.

Nothing much to do with it being the shortest day! This is a granite statue of the Egyptian god Amun in the form of a ram.

Amun was believed to be the chief of the Egytian gods. His identity seems to have changed over the years and dynasties but Amun was god of wind … so perhaps it is slightly relevant for today – we’ve had some fairly spicy winds kicking up here in Wales for the most part of the day!

In later generations Amun’s identity merged with the sun god Ra and he became Amun-Ra.

I don’t believe in Egyptian deities but I would rather like to see the sun again! And I do like sheep. So I quite like this nice granite ram statue.

Advent: December 20th

This item is so well known it probably doesn’t need introducing. It was another of the artefacts I most wanted to see.

It is of course the Sutton Hoo Helmet.

This formed part of an Anglo-Saxon burial hoard found in Suffolk and excavated in 1939. The hoard dates from the early 7th century and consisted of a ship buried in an earth mound. In the centre was a wooden burial chamber containing rich textiles, silver Byzantine plate, armour, weapons and musical instruments. Items made from organic materials of course rotted away including the timber of the ship itself. But the imprints and chemicals left behind in the soil indicated items.

It is thought to be the magnificent burial of a king, most likely King Raedwald of East Anglia.

Advent: December 19th

Behind on my days again! Not doing very well this year!

This is the back view of one of the Lewis Chessmen.

These are mediaeval chess pieces exquisitely carved from walrus ivory that were discovered on the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland in 1831.

They were carved in the 12 century probably in Norway.

I’ve chosen this back view because of the beautiful patterns  and detail of the carving but also because the front view I took was rather blurry sadly. They have unbelievably glum expressions too – one queen piece I took a photo of looks like she’s in a right royal strop!

Advent: December 18th

This is a badly taken photograph again from my trip to the British Museum but it interests me because it combines both textiles and ceramics but not in a conventional form.

These beaded nets are in the so-called Mummy Room. Because I was walking around without a map I came upon the popular Egyptian exhibits without realising it until I was in the midst of the mummies. Part of me was almost shocked by the suddenness and trying to process the fact they were “real” bodies. Because they are a draw for visitors the room was quite full of people and I think that’s what unnerved me the most. There is something disconcerting to the point of being distasteful to see grinning tourists taking “selfies” with the embalmed bodies of people from a different millennia, culture and place.

I refrained from taking many photos in here, confining myself to inanimate objects and animals. They may “just” be the earthly remnants of people long gone but the impact of what embalming a body meant to the Ancient Egyptians was apparently totally lost on these unthinking visitors. Their whole belief structure centered around the Afterlife – the gods, their judgement and the need to preserve their human remains so the deceased could live happily in the Afterlife. The higher status the person, the more elaborate the burial and mummification process could be.

The mummies in the British Museum may not be pharaohs but nevertheless, they were people of rank and importance and presumably accorded great dignity both in their lifetimes and after their death. Whilst several thousand years has diluted the impact, I still feel that all human remains should be treated with a measure of respect and I felt uncomfortable with some of the behaviour I saw in this part of the museum.

Beaded nets placed on the mummy were part of high status burials from around three millennia ago. The notes next to this exhibit suggest that deities were often depicted wearing bead net garments and to place one on the mummy was to more closely ally the dead person with a god.

The large net with the collar is constructed of blue Egyptian faience beads which is a silica ceramic – a forerunner of both glass and other glazed ceramics – so neither glass nor pottery. I like that this article signifies so many things; both human and divine, creative and scientific, aesthetic and devout.

And as a craftsperson it most strongly resonated that it was something so painstakingly crafted in this life so as to be fit to be buried for eternity.

Advent: December 17th

Just another photo I like.

Friends

This is our old pony Cobweb with her new friend Boysey. Cobby has lived with us for around 17-18 years – we can’t really remember how long! She’s very old, 35 years old which even for a native pony is good. Most of the time she’s lived with us she’s been an only pony but horses are herd animals and thrive better with others so it’s really nice that she now has a friend to keep her company.

When Boysey’s owner comes to take him out for a ride she rushes around whinnying for him and I have to soothe her and reassure her that he is coming back again. They don’t always share things nicely and their needs are different so they don’t actually live in the same field. But all the same, they like to touch noses over the fence and be a mini “herd” like that and are very fond of each other. They’ve both benefited from like-minded company. Friendship is as important to animals as it is to humanity.

It seems a good photo for today. It’s 19 years today that we moved here from my Shropshire home town. I was 18 and it was hard to leave behind my friends and start over someplace new and go from urban living to the wide open, sparsely populated spaces of rural Wales. The demographic is very different here in every respect and it took some getting used to, especially as a teenager when you’re changing and growing so much emotionally and mentally. At times I struggled and more so as my friends gradually moved away from my home town too and went to University and started new lives elsewhere. Sometimes I felt it was hard to make new friends where I had no common ground, no shared history. To fit in. In time I settled and discovered the rich community around me. But it was hard won and took time.

Today I had to go back to town to do some shopping and errands and coincidentally managed to meet up with one of my childhood friends who moved back to Shropshire some years ago. We don’t see each other very often at all and for many years we’d lost contact completely. It was good to meet up and talk about old times, old places from the perspective of adulthood and the acquired “wisdom” that life teaches you; sometimes with hard knocks, sometimes with soft caresses. We both know we’ve changed a lot through the life experiences that have happened to us over the 28 years since we first met.

It was good also to look at her face and see my childhood friend and the qualities I admired in her then still here now; her generosity, her calmness, her kindness to both her siblings and her friends transformed into the grown woman and mother she is now. Different and yet still reassuringly the same.

I’m lucky to have a few friends from my childhood still who are still part of my life now. We may no longer “live in the same field” but it’s good for the soul to occasionally “touch noses over the fence” as it were and remind ourselves of the qualities that bind us living creatures together and our shared histories that forged our early characters. That which makes us step outside of ourselves and see others as they really are.

Friendship.

Advent: December 16th

You know who this is!

I suppose it’s inevitable that even when I’m in a concrete jungle – albeit one with beautiful architecture – I’ll still go looking for animals.

Yes, it’s one of the Trafalgar Square Lions. I took this sitting on the steps of the National Gallery whilst eating a rather tasty Chelsea Bun and drinking a take out cup of Earl Grey fending off a very determined pigeon who had designs on my cake. You can’t really get more British than that…