Saturday 6th January

The only typo I found yesterday was in the title! I read through the text a couple of times... but that was not enough.

Here's the 'moon' which baffled me yesterday morning. I guess the illusion will remain until the sky is much lighter in the mornings.

iThe photograph was taken a little too early, but the sky changes quickly and I missed the perfect moment. The brighter light below my ghostly moon is a streetlight. 

My usual daily routine was disrupted by spending the morning removing the Christmas decorations.  Spot the difference to the hearth?

I'm keeping the candles, but the tinsel is all packed away. I know there is one little wooden Christmas decoration on the bathroom windowsill but I shall pack that into its box at bedtime.

Tomorrow we shall discover all the other things that escaped the boxes and bags; there are always a few!

Friday 5th January

 This morning I woke fairly early, probably around 7am, after Himself had already got up, dressed, opened the curtains, switched on the light and gone downstairs. 

I was lying facing the window,  which faces east, and was bemused to see an enormous full moon shining in, so close it seemed to be almost resting against the glass and rather pale against the dark blue sky. 

I was aware that the moon ought to be at the back of the house, and last time I had seen the moon, a few days ago, it was less than half full and waning. In the end I managed to work out that I was looking at the reflection of our bedroom light, which has a large white paper globe for a shade.

With that I closed my eyes again, and the next time I opened them it was after half past eight, the 'moon' had disappeared and the sky was pale blue-grey flushed with pink.

How can it be that I was alert enough  to know this 'moon' was on the wrong side of the house and in the wrong phase and the wrong size, and yet still be totally confused by this 'other moon' floating before my eyes? 

We have moved into another 'micro season' according to my book 'Nature's Calendar - the tear in 72 seasons'

The noticing exercise for January is paying attention to the sunsets but some recent sunrises have been beautiful too.

Thursday 4th January

All change on the knitting needle front again.

The nice little circular needles have turned out to be too short to hold all the stitches securely, and I find that the very short length of the handle bit too short for comfort. 

I found some bamboo straight needles in the wastepaper bin I use to store all straight needles and switched to them -  much better. I'll see how I get on. The yarn is a Christmas present from a student who is also a good friend. When I realised I'd probably need a other ball I went online and looked it up; I knew from the label it is Pebble from Woolcraft, and shade 8050 turns out to be called 'rhythm'!

We've had a lot of unexpected entertainment from our battery powered candles. Here's why;

from left to right;

1  operates the candles on the Christmas tree. Mostly. You have to walk around the tree to make sure of zapping them all.

2  for the red candles. But also switches on most of the older white candles and the four small new white candles which aren't marketed as remote controlled.

3  for the older white candles. The red candles blink when you use it to switch the older white candles off (are you still with me?) but stay on.

4  only works on the oldest white candle, which we gave to my godmother 5 or 6 years ago as she loved candles but was in her 90s, very frail and becoming forgetful. We just brought batteries with us when we visited in case they heeded replacing.

Then there's the television remote which seems to switch the candles randomly depending on the direction of aim and which channel I've chosen.

Switching everything off at night is a bit of a challenge. I consider it a major achievement if I succeed in getting 'complete offness' at the first attempt!

Wednesday 3rd January

 I've reluctantly cried off Book Club tonight. I join the meetings via zoom, and it's actually quite tiring to follow the conversations of everyone else as they share delicious food and chat around the table. But I've done far too many things today; and when I had a bath this afternoon I really thought I was going to faint as I got out - very scary! I managed to get myself to the bedroom and switch on the oxygen machine, for I was pretty certain that was the cause. I'm OK now, as long as I'm sat sitting here on the settee and not doing much.

The book under discussion is 'Candide' by Voltaire

and yet again I haven't finished the book in time for the meeting. It's an unusual choice, but one of the group is doing an OU degree in English Literature so we're reading it to support her. I listened to several chapters but didn't enjoy it; a series of calamitous episodes which befall a young adventurer as he jumps out one frying pan into a fire and into another frying pan. A sort of quick-fire literary pantomime.

I may yet take a break from the club; I'd miss seeing my friends but find I'm preferring to read fairly light-weight fiction; blurbs which include 'thought-provoking' etc ring alarm bells, and then 'psychological thriller', 'heart-rending' and 'harrowing' set off all the klaxons!

I've just started re-reading 'Gaudy Night' by Dorothy L Sayers for the umpteenth time. Here's a paragraph for my Commonplace Book, a conversationbetween Harriet Vane and Miss de Vine;

There's something to ponder. 

Tuesday 2nd January

 In line with the idea of 'hope', I noticed the sun-rise and sun-set times for today;

 and for next Monday

Eight full hours of daylight today, and another nine minutes next week! Although for nearly all of today it was wet, windy and down-right unpleasant outside. There was a brief moment, just a couple of minutes, of bright golden sunshine, lasting just long enough to lift my heart. 

Lovely!

I do like reading books that can accompany me through the year. I might have mentioned this one, which I received as a birthday present back in November; 

"Nature's Calendar: The British Year in 72 Seasons" by Kiera Chapman, Rowan Jaines, Lulah Ellender,  and Rebecca Warren.

I began reading it throughout December, and now I've turned back to the beginning. It is a fascinating mix of scientific and descriptive observation. This extract is from the introduction; 

"Research undertaken at Coventry University suggests that spring moves at an average of 1.9 miles per hour across the UK, from south to north. Of course, some individual species respond to the passing of time more quickly, others more slowly. 

Hawthorn leaves, for example, open first in the southwest, and the timing of their unfurling travels in a northeasterly direction at a rate of 6.3 miles per hour. Sightings of the first flutterings of orange-tip butterflies travel at an average of 1.4 miles per hour. Frogspawn is slower, moving across the country at one mile per hour, which seems to suit its gelatinous state. 

Spring is not so much an event as a movement, and one that is subject to the vagaries of meteorological conditions in any given year."  

The 'noticing exercise' for January concerns watching sunsets, easy for me as the back of the house faces west. The first 'microseason' is from 1st to 4th January called 'Catkins Dingle-dangle', decribing the complex system that hazels have evolved for pollinating their tiny red-fringed flowers. 

I strongly recommend this book if you are interested in the underlying science hidden inside the natural world.

Knitting continues; I made such a pig's ear of knitting the ribbed cuff of the first sock in the round that I have started the second sock flat, and will join it into the round once I've reached the 'real knitting' part.

I strongly recommend these weird bendy needles; once you get used to them knitting in the round becomes so much simpler. I think they are called 'addi crazy trios'; sadly rather more expensive than a set of dpns.

 No cross stitch progress; last night was not a 'sleeping night' - I was very restless and spent some time listening to an audiobook. If sleep isn't coming, there's no point getting agitated. But it did mean I stayed clear of cross stitch as I knew that if I tried, I would end up having to deploy the scissors!

Monday 1st January 2024

 We did it! If you are reading this, then you are joining all the rest of us who made it into another year, in spite of, or maybe because of everything 11that happened last year.

I'm taking the themes of the Advent candles forward with me into 2024,

 which are Peace, Hope, Joy and Love

So I wish you, and me, and all our friends and families Hope, Peace, Joy and Love through the year, to help us on our way.

I notice that some bbloggerschoose a word or a phrase for the year, others make resolutions, and others steadfastly refuse to commit themselves.

I have had the same resolutions for maybe 10 years, and have no desire to change them, namely

To keep the 'end of day' journal going, where, last thing in the evening I write a page about the day

To give 2 bags (any size) of stuff (any amount - 1, or 2, or 20 items) to charity every month

To eat chocolate several times a week (to keep me sweet!)

I think I've more or less kept to this every year. Some months nothing has gone to charity, but then in other months we've cleared ten carrier bags of books. That's good enough. I like to set the bar reasonably low; it reduces the chance of failure...

I do have 'wishful thoughts' for the year. Lose about half a stone... play the piano more often... finish more craft projects than I start... do more drawing and painting... do more writing... keep on top of the cross stitch collaboration (another 100 stitches added today). 

But I'm not committing myself to any of these 'wishful thoughts'. I'll just see how it goes.

Here's a start; the first finished wip of 2024 is a simple knitted pouch for the +3 reading glasses that are such a help reading piano music. I just needed to sew up the sides, so why was it hanging around for so long?