Wishing you a very Happy New Year

Winter Dessert Chocolates

This Christmas I received a box of choclates as a gift - nothing unusual about that you may think - but these were something else!  The selection included some of my favourite desserts. 

• Black Forest Gateau
• Spiced Apple Pie
• Sherry Trifle
• Rhubarb Crumble
• Lemon Meringue
• Treacle Tart
• Tiramisu

What more can a girl ask for - even as a non-chocolate-lover - how can I resist them?
 Thank you brother-in-law.

Alone and palely loitering

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art -

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite

The moving waters at their priest-like task

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -

No - yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel forever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever - or else swoon to death.

John Keats

John Keats by William Hilton

John Keats was an English Romantic poet,

his reputation grew after his death and by the end

of the 19th century he had become one of the

most beloved of all English poets.

Isabella Jones

It is thought that the first version of Bright Star might have been

originally written for Isabella jones

with whom he was romantically involved in 1817.

Letters suggest he first met Frances (Fanny) Brawne in 1818

but their romance was overshadowed

by Keats' ill health.

Fanny Brawne

"I have two luxuries to brood over" he wrote to her

"your loveliness and the hour of my death"

He left England for Rome as tuberculosis took hold in 1820

knowing he would never see Fanny again.

He died five months later.

Keats home

Wentworth Place

now the Keats Museum

Keats grave in Rome

Keats died in 1821 and was buried in Rome.
Fanny stayed in mourning for six years
after which she married and had three children.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever

Its loveliness increases, it will never

Pass into nothingness, but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams,

and earth,

and quiet breathing.

I loved this film

Jane Campion has captured the Georgian feel perfectly

beautiful cinematography

bluebell woods

fields of daffodils

wild gardens

the austerity of the house interiors

beautiful fashions

The film has such an intensity of feeling and passion

I almost held my breath all the way through

and

to hear his poetry spoken aloud gives it such profound meaning.

Be still my beating heart.

The Hidden Beauty of Pollination

Just a little 'inbetweeny' post that I found on http://www.eartheasy.com/ newsletter - to lift our spirits in lieu of a dreary winter.

In the Bleak Midwinter

In the Bleakmidwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long Ago.

Christina Rossetti

music by Gustav Holst

The Snow-drop,

Winter's timid child,

Awakes to life,

bedew'd with tears

Mary Robinson

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the withered air

Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet

Delayed, all friends shut out, and housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure

in the landscape - the loneliness of it - the dead feeling of

winter.  Something waits beneath it - the whole story

doesn't show.

Andrew Wyeth

Most people, early in November, take last looks at their

gardens, and are then prepared to ignore them until the spring. 

I am quite sure that a garden doesn't like to be

ignored like this.

It doesn't like to be covered in dust sheets, as though it were

an old room which you had shut up during the winter.

Especially since a garden knows how gay and delightful

it can be,

even in the very frozen heart of the winter,

if you only give it a chance.

Beverley Nichols

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ...

In Spring, Summer and Fall people sort of have an

open season on each other;

only in winter, in the country,

can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can

savour belonging to yourself.

Ruth Stout

When the ice of winter holds the house in its rigid grip,

when curtains are drawn early against that vast frozen waste

of landscape,

almost like a hibernating hedgehog

I relish the security of being withdrawn from all that summer

ferment that is long since past.

Then is the time for re-appraisal: to spread out,

limp and receptive,

and let garden thoughts rise to the surface.

They emerge from some deep source of stillness

which the very fact of winter

has released.
Mirabel Osler

All photos: Pinterest

Deck the Halls

Pas de Deux

The word ballet comes from the French and was borrowed

into the English language around 1630.

The French word has its origin in Italian balleto

from ballo (to dance)

which comes from the Latin ballare

which in turn comes from the Greek ballizo

Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul

Alexander Pushkin

You don't have to know about ballet to enjoy it

all you have to do is look at it

Edwin Denby

If it were not for dreams there would not be such a thing as ballet,

the cruelest of the performing arts

Author unknown

Ballet is completely unnatural to the body

it is not the way the body is supposed to function

so you train your body to be a different structure

than you were born with

Neve Campbell

Ballet is not a technique

but a way of expression that comes more closely to the inner

language of man

than any other

George Borodin

Most people think of ballet as

children in tutus

They don't know it is

sweat, blood and tears as well

Nan Keating

Degas

Dance is very old it started with

Louis XIV at Versailles

Neve Campbell

Anna Pavlova

Hoo Goes There?

Hoo Goes There?

by

Sharon Hanzik

Softly feathered for silent flight,

Moving about in the calm moonlight,

We cannot hear them unless they call,

Who cooks for you?  Who cooks for y'all?

A soft call is carried away by the wind,

Hoo, hoo-hoo, over and over again.

A flash of white swoops low overhead,

Shh-shh, enough said.

Night-time hunters see well in the dark,

Almost never miss their mark.

Hearing is even better than sight,

They hunt by sound on the darkest night.

With powerful talons to catch their prey,

Rarely a rodent gets away.

In daylight, hidden, blending in well,

An owl or limb?  It's hard to tell.

Meadow, forest, farm or town,

Owls are great to have around,

They come in all sizes, live anywhere,

Some species common, some are rare.

Wherever they live, they add to the place,

A sense of mystery and natural grace.



A Nice Cup of Tea

I like a nice cup of tea in the morning

   

Just to start the day you see



and at half past eleven


                                                           



my idea of heaven



is a nice cup of tea

                                                     
                                                          

I like a nice cup of tea
with my dinner

                                                

                                                      






and a nice cup of tea with my tea

                                                         

And about this time of night

                                                 

What goes down a treat - you're right

is a nice cup of tea

                                                                   



Open a Book

Open a book

And you will find

People and places of every kind



Open a book

And you can be

Anything that you want to be

Open a book

And you can share

Wondrous worlds you find in there

Open a book

And I will too

You read to me

And I'll read to you.

Open a Book

by

Jane Baskwill

Photos:  Pinterest

The Enchanted Forest

A song of enchantment I sang me there

In a green-green wood, by waters fair,

Just as the words came up to me

I sang it under the wild wood tree.

Widdershins turned I, singing it low,

Watching the wild birds come and go,



No cloud in the deep dark blue to be seen

Under the thick-thatched branches green.

Twilight came: silence came:

The planet of Evening's silver flame,

By darkening paths I wandered through

Thickets trembling with the dew.

But the music is lost and the words are gone

Of the song I sang as I sat alone,

Ages and ages have fallen on me

On the wood and the pool and the elder tree.

A Song of Enchantment

by

Walter de la Mare

Photo source:  Pinterest