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We have had the most marvellous week having hired Hellfire Jack’s at Trengove Farm for the family to stay so we could celebrate my 80th birthday all together. There have been treats and delights every day and one of those was the set of four beautiful Christmas Jigsaw crackers I bought from Wentworth Puzzles, one for each family. These are tiny wooden jigsaws that each fit in a cracker and which are really quite hard to complete. The competition to finish first was fierce!
    Today we have started on of the three jigsaws we were given for Christmas. I have shared poems from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer from whom I get a poem every day in my inbox. She gave me permission some time ago to share whenever as long as you all know who the poet is. I love her work and would share even more but it seems greedy.
Thank you for all the comments while we have been ill. We are bettering but not yet better. I will reply to all comments in the next day or two. To enjoy the family visit we slept most of the day and joined ithem for the evening meal and fun every evening. |
Category Archives: Christmas
Jigsaws, Another Jigsaw and A Poem
Christmas Tree and Christmas Slippers
I was asked to show more of our Christmas tree by a fellow blogger. Here it is, a ‘silver birch’ which folds away all year, has little lights along each branch, is decorated with angels collected on all our trips abroad and a few treasures from my Mum’s collection and which is simple and easy. I did love the days when we had a big, real tree, one which we, all wrapped up in cosy clothes, chose from the farm. I loved the smell when it was indoors and filling it with countless baubles with the help of our four lovely little people. Those lovely little people are now all grown up with their own families and have arrived this afternoon ready for party time.
I love my Christmas slipper socks, warm and full of colour.
We are postponing the three generation birthday party to New Year’s Day instead of Eve, in the hope that the antibiotics I have been given today will have kicked in and I’ll be able to be the life and soul of the party!
Serendipity and Kindness
Today, one of the people who gets a weekly veg bag from Roots, messaged us all to say that they had gone away for Christmas and forgotten to pick up their bag – so, would anyone like it. Here’s the serendipity – We would like it as we had been unable to get our fruit and veg at the start of the week as planned, both being unwell so we had decided we would manage with a few frozen veg for a few days.
Now the kindness….. Community Roots, where the bag was to be picked up, is a 15 minute drive away and neither of us is fit to go out so I said we would like the bag, explained the situation and asked if there was a good fairy around to help. But of course there was! This is Community Roots we are talking about. Two Roots friends offered and now we have the veg and some fruit, enough to take us up to and through when the whole family arrive on 30th December!
So now we have a wonderful array of freshly grown veg (some of which I probably sowed many months ago!) With all that Roots-grown veggie goodness in us, we are surely going to get better very soon.
Three Gifts – A Snowflake, Cookies and A Poem
A snowflake arrived in today’s post, beautifully crocheted and a gift from a follower. It has gone straight onto our tree.
Thank you very much Judith
Another gift came today, one we were instructed not to keep until Christmas but to consume soon. So this evening we have each had a delicious Raspberry and White Choc Chip Cookie for dessert.
Thank you S and E, absolutely gorgeous!
‘
It’s Our Christmas Too’ by Mary FletcherChristmas comes just at the darkest time of year
flashing lights
a twinkling treesome time for lovely foodfor friends and familyfor children to be given too much stufffor those of us with no childrento realise what we lack.We look forward to the New Year
warm sunshine and green shoots will come back.
Those of us that do not believe in godand worship no onebut put our faith in hope,In folk to do their best,we do not go to church.we do not believe we’ll live after we die,But we can light a candle,share in singing,pass some treats around.Its our Christmas too,Our Solstice,Our Midwinter,Our humanist joy,That celebrates and treasuresEvery baby girl and boy.
The Nutcracker and My Dad
Today Daughter no 2 and her daughter, LiveWire no 3 went to see The Nutcracker at The Royal Ballet and Opera House in London and this evening we have been to see the livestream of the same performance. It was wonderful and I love the idea that, despite being hundreds of miles apart, we have just shared the ballet experience together.
Today too, I remember my wonderful Dad who died on this day in 2004 after a very hard nine months and his final, even harder ,17 days in St John’s Hospice in Doncaster. where he, and I, were extremely well looked after with love and understanding.
Another Christmas Gig
As we are about to start singing
On display
Just finished singing The Twelve Days of Christmas with audience participation
One of the beautiful horses
Lights across the Trehaddle Valley on zoom
No zoom
Colouring, Cake and Christmas Lights
We bought a delightful Advent calendar for one of our LiveWires, the Wild Advent Colouring Book – British Wildlife Edition, and she has been sending us the pictures as she colours them in. We love her precision and care.
Tomorrow’s cake for the volunteers is a lemon sponge in the shape of a Christmas tree.
I’m loving the effect of my trying to take Christmas lights from a moving car, being driven by my lovely Mr S.
Performance, Ukraine and Singing
Yesterday was so busy that two important things were missed!
After the delightful party for J, 90 years old, in the evening we went with friends to see a fabulous Christmas show called Christmas.Time. This is the third time we have seen the show and loved it every time. It’s the 18th year that the two very talented young men who are Near-ta Theatre have performed the show which has become a staple hereabouts. If you, Dear Reader, live nearby, there are shows still to be seen at The Poly, Falmouth. Here’s the link.You won’t regret it!
I have ordered a beautiful jigsaw puzzle from Ukraine for the family to do together when they are all here over New Year. I am here reprinting the whole message I received from the company yesterday. At the end you can hear The Ingleheart Singers with their first rehearsal this year of Carol of the Bells.
While our capacity to produce and to ship puzzles from Ukraine has been severely impacted by power outages caused by the constant shelling of Ukrainian power infrastructure by Russia (that’s why most of puzzles are shown as out of stock on our website), we still can continue telling about Ukrainian culture.
This week’s email is about Mykola Leontovych (13 Dec 1877 – 23 Jan 1921), the Ukrainian composer and author of the famous “Shchedryk” / “Carol of the Bells,” whose birthday we commemorate today.
Mykola Leontovych, the son of a priest, was also a conductor and teacher who specialized in a cappella choral music. He is best known for composing “Shchedryk,” which later became famous around the world as the Christmas classic “Carol of the Bells.” That happened thanks to enormous efforts of cultural figures and some politicians of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in the last months of its existence before the Soviet occupation of Ukraine in 1919. This treasure had all chances to be demolished and buried, as it happened with Boychukism and many other phenomena of Ukrainian culture, but in some miraculous way, it overcame all the obstacles along with the Ukrainian Republic Capella under the leadership of choral conductor Oleksandr Koshyts.
On January 23, 1921, while audiences in Paris were triumphantly applauding the newly discovered “Shchedryk,” its composer, Mykola Leontovych, was shot in his own home by a Chekist (a Soviet state security agent).
Important to note that Leontovych wrote “Schedryk” in the town of Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, which currently is one of the key battlefields in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
So, please keep the Ukrainian Warriors who are now defending Pokrovsk and all of Ukraine in your thoughts each time you hear “Carol of the Bells” this holiday season.
Winter Trees, Puddle and Christmas Lights
After a delicious Christmas lunch at Trennick Mill with our friends, we drove home beside the Truro River and the winter trees stood out against the wintering sky..
Reflected in a puddle
On the Trafalgar roundabout there is a lights model of Truro Cathedral.
Nearly home, we saw a lovely nativity scene in lights.
Tree, Wreath and Sunset Sky
I’ve put up our first decorations, both fabric, both beautiful gifts from family. I hang them each side of the glass in the inner door.
Tree, a gift from family in Warsaw, Poland
Wreath of fabric hearts, a gift from family in Atlanta, USA
Walking home this evening the sky was lovely, gentle pastel colours in the sky behind the Bassett Monument and the castle on Carn Brea.
