Christmas Rose   Jean Wilmhurst

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine;

Love was born at Christmas,

Stars and Angels gave the sign.

Christina Rossetti

I guess that's what Christmas is all about, - Love and Joy and Peace and Hope, and so we send our greetings and best wishes that all these

wonderful things are with you this Christmas time;

and in the year that follows.

Hildred and Charles

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is W

And W is for 'Winsome'

winsome adj

charming, winning, engaging  a winsome smile

[OLD ENGLISH]  wynsum, ffrom wynn (joy) related to Old High German wunnia German wonne + sum (some)

winsomely  adv

winsomeness n

So here are a few 'winsome' smiles

A parody on Winston Cigarettes

although what is sweet and innocent and charming here is not apparent

Here is the Winsome Rose, and below a daylily called the  Winsome Lady, both quite enchanting

Robbie Burns wrote a poem in praise of his Wife, who was a Winsome Wee thing....

My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing

She is a winsome wee thing

She is a handsome wee thing

She is a bonnie wee thing

This sweet wee wife o' mine.

I never saw a fairer,

I never lo'ed a dearer,

And next my heart I'll wear her.

For fear my jewel tine.

She is a winsome wee thing,

She is a handsome wee thing.

She is a bonnie wee thing.

This sweet wee wife o' mine.

The World's wrack we share o't.

The warstle and the care o't.

Wi' her I'll blythly bear it.

And think my lot divine.

Robert Burns  1759-1796

and in conclusion

a winsome President

For more takes on the letter W wind your way over to ABC Wednesday

and see what Mrs. Nesbitt and her crew have

so kindly offered.

A Frosty Friday

Well, it was late in the evening when the frosty mists crept up from the river bottom and began to cover the valley and the hills.

On Saturday the silver rime brought beauty to each leaf and flower and branch it touched.....

A troop of Quail came to dine in such an exquisite fairyland.

and a sharp shinned hawk arrived to admire the artistry - I think that was his purpose, - the little birds didn't seem too alarmed at his presence

Christmas Socks

Here are the results of my enthusiastic resolve to make socks for

all the men in my life

Less, of course, the four pair I gave away for birthday presents,

and the two pair that I mailed the other day before I remembered to take a picture.

So I am one pair short of my planned thirteen, and I might catch up after Christmas

and I might not!!!!

Perhaps I will make toques, or scarves for next year,

or perhaps I will indulge myself and take on a challenging project

that will hold my interest and my attention.  I have a wonderful pattern for a complicated blanket

that you can make in various sizes that really appeals to me....

Handknit Socks are so lovely on the feet, but they do get to be a bit much of the same thing

all the time! When you are making them......

Tomorrow I am going to make shortbread tarts to go

with the Lemon Curd that was today's loving project in the kitchen.

Ah Christmas - what happy memories you evoke, and what opportunities

to do the things that delight one!

ABC Wednesday

The letter for this week is the Veritable V

V is for VETERANS

During the Second World War Bournemouth was a disbursing centre for Airmen who had just arrived in the UK, and these three Airman, school chums from the Okanagan, all with the same desire - to one day be VETERANS, met by chance while stationed there awaiting posting.

They agreed that if they made it through the war they would all meet for a celebration drink in the Royal Canadian Legion in Penticton on July 1st, Canada Day.  It was a harrowing experience.  The one on the left was a Tail Gunner and the only one left alive when the plane he was in crashed into a mountain top.  The one in the middle went to the Continent and kept fighter planes flying for the allies, in the thick of it. The one on the right became a Lancaster Pilot in 170 Squadron,  and lost both his brothers after D Day.  But they all returned home, - and now they were VETERANS.

Well, time passed, and the years flew by, - they all got married and had families.  They saw each other intermittently, and although they never forgot their vow to meet again in the Legion, it just didn't happen until a retired school teacher who is writing a book of veterans' stories, got them all together and brought the Tail Gunner and the Communications and Radar fellow to our place (the home of the Pilot) for lunch last Friday.

What a fine time they had, - a lifetime of memories, and all three of them still the same handsome fellows they were sixty-six years ago, - but now with the addition of canes, which really makes them quite debonair.

Best Visitors we've had in a long while.

For more interesting V's click here to visit ABC Wednesday

Early in the morning, and sleep eludes me.  I toss and turn a bit, wondering what life is all about, but then I think about the snow that fell yesterday, making the whole world sweet and white.  We watched the poplar tree that stands between us and the big house,  festooned with starlings that rose into the snowy air like a curtain, then fell to the ground - a shower of dark pennies; only to feed a little and rise again into the branches.  Were they singing paeans to the snow or just reveling in the pure whiteness of the world.



I rise and peer into the darkness of the early morning to see if the snow has lingered through the night.  The lane is level and smooth and white, but the steps are bare and I foresee by noon the garden will once again have thrown off its protective counterpane.

The coffee has perked;  the cat has left me to resume her sleep;  I hear the house begin to stir and the day begins....... I miss the little dog, who sometimes comes to me as I sleep and makes the night hours poignant.

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is U

....which stands for Ungulate

An Ungulate is any hoofed animal, - a hoof being an enlarged toenail.

Why hooves?

Hooves are usually broad and flexible, and the animal can walk and dig even in thick snow.  Because the animal walks and runs on its toes the rest of the foot extends up into the leg, making the leg particularly long and increasing the swiftness of their stride. The ungulate we are going to consider today lives in the cold arctic tundra, is capable of surviving in extremely cold weather and in places where food is not plentiful.  They eat plants and lichens and are the only deer that can be domesticated.

Of course you have already guessed, -  the most popular Ungulate of the season is the reindeer, a majestic mammal from the arctic and subarctic, some of whom have taken up with Santa Claus at the North Pole, become magical creatures and fly his sleigh through the skies on Christmas Eve, landing on rooftops to give Santa access to chimneys and other modes of entry where both good and naughty children live.

Good children are supposedly left toys, and naughty kids gets lumps of coal in their stockings, I'm told, although it never happened to me (smirk).

The Reindeer, au natural, feeding on the tundra of the north and using its strong hooves to dig up sustenance from the frozen ground.

Reindeer, beloved of Santa and with star dust sprinkled on them which enables them to

fly through the air (so I have been told).

In the poem 'A Visit from Saint Nicholas' (attributed to Clement Moore)  the poet mentions a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer.

"The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,'

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be Saint Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.

'Now Dasher, now Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

On Comet! on Cupid! on, Dunder and Blixem!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!'

Santa and his reindeer as  depicted in 1862

when this poem was first published.

I know this all to be true, as does any child of northern climes where winters are snowy and a quick trip outside on Christmas morning will still show you the mark of the reindeers'  hooves and the runners of Santa's sleigh in the snow.**

For more fanciful U's visit here at ABC Wednesday


**depending upon how early the milkman came with his horse drawn sleigh (yes, I lived that long ago!)

The Garden in December

It was warmer today, - really quite a pleasant day.  Late in the afternoon, just as the sun was preparing to slip away, I went out to fill the bird feeders.

I took the camera to catch some of the pretty pink wisps of cloud that were floating high above, and also hugging the hill tops.

When all was replenished in the bird feeding department I strolled through the garden, trying to give cover to the most vulnerable plants, and admiring what the frost had done to the yellow roses that got caught unprepared for its chilly advances.

...and the 'grocery store' roses

as well as the Pearly Everlastings....

Here is another lovely rose, and now I really must go and finish the toe on that sock I'm knitting -still three more socks to knit and parcels to mail, and cards, and baking and shining up the house before we decorate!

But I will do it all as simply and tranquilly as possible!

ABC Wednesday
The letter for this week is T
and I would like to think that T stands for Tranquility occasionally...

A few wise words about Tranquility....

While conscience is our friend, all is at peace; however once it is offended, farewell to a tranquil mind.

Mary Wortly Montagu

All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't.

And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.

Robert Kennedy

Don't ask to live in tranquil times.  Literature doesn't grow there.

Rita Mae Brown

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed,

the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.

Indra Devi

The more tranquil a man becomes the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good:  calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.

James Allen

A few pros and cons which lead me to believe that tranquility is greatly desired in moderation,

but to be avoided at all costs if we become so calm and peaceful that we are

tranquilized to all the enthusiasms of living as embodied in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Psalm of Life.

We don't want to obliterate our 'footsteps in the sands of time' completely, now, do we!!

For more T interpretations click here to go to ABC Wednesday and enjoy!

Good News, Good News

It is the evening of June 3rd, and I pick up the phone to call my sister on a mobile phone

She talks to me from a restaurant in Edmonton where she and her oldest son are having a pre-admission supper before she undergoes major heart surgery the next day.  She is bright and positive, with plans to attend her granddaughter's wedding in three weeks or so.....

Between that evening and now she has had more medical adventures than you could shake a stick at, and I have not heard her dear voice for six months less four days, so you can imagine how my heart leapt when I went to answer the phone this afternoon and saw her name and telephone number displayed.  Home on a two hour pass from the hospital with two of her children, she sounded as bright and positive as she did six months ago, and it seemed as if all the distress and despair of the intervening time was a very bad dream.

I had to post this news, - it just seems so WOW! How Awesome!  And I am so full of gratitude........

The phone rings, - a man's pleasant voice gives me his name, tells me his mission, which is gathering the stories of Veterans, and asks me if Charles would be willing to talk to him!

I smile to myself, as I hand the phone to Charles with a short explanation.

When has Charles not been willing to talk and tell stories!!!  It is getting him to write them down that is difficult.

This morning, as we prepared for the gentleman's visit, scrummaging around in drawers, looking for papers and photos, I came across a loose leaf binder upon whose cover I had pasted an article entitled "MAKE TIME TO DO IT NOW" and with the admonishment "take action on your good intentions and live a life without regrets".

I remembered it well, and how it had inspired me, once the children had all left home, to organize my time. my mind, my resources and to seize the day!  "Time plays hard to get, is more precious than jewels and must be used wisely".


I open the cover and find in it just a few pages.

A colourful Mind Map entitled Packing to Move.   This would have been when we moved the accumulation of forty years from the farm to the lovely big house in town, - big enough to accommodate everything we had gathered over the years, alas!  I study the Map and try to remember if I followed it faithfully, - good heavens, was I ever so organized????  I see a lot of 'sorting' circles, and discards, and 'to thrift shop' - it was all such a long time ago, and I was so much younger and so full of energy and enthusiasm.......

Oh, here is another mind map, - this one's main purpose is cleaning, and it is not nearly as colourful, but just as necessary.

And another one entitled 'Christmas Presents".  I see names on it of people once beloved and now long gone. And here are grandchildren to whom I planned to give baby dolls and toy trucks who are now grown and have their own babies and big trucks, - and missing are some grandchildren who hadn't even made it to the Mind Map Circle..

I turn to the next page and find my busy mind had been organizing the boxes of snapshots and putting them in chronological order.  An album for the years from 1945 to 1950  that included our wedding and honeymoon, and after that a new album every five years, with treasure map reminders of what pictures each one should contain.  What a Grand Idea!

Too bad it didn't ever see fruition, but nevertheless to have it all laid out like this is a wonderful record of the years and a wellspring of memories.

There are a few more Mind Maps dealing with the early months after we moved to town, when my enthusiasm was probably nine miles high, - plans for the garden,  - I see a happy entry for The Trailer, culminating in a smiling sun and the inspired word 'GO'!  Those were the Golden Years of retirement, when Caspar was a pup and we all traveled together, and fished and camped and made memories galore.

The gentleman to whom Charles is telling his stories is coming back next Friday to hear more, but I have to bake that day for the Christmas Sale the next day, so I won't be running into any more precious treasures.

I wish I knew how to turn those mind maps around to landscape mode, but I don't and I'm sure you aren't interested in the details of our moving, or our 25 year old Christmas plans, or what I was planning to do with the boxes and boxes of pictures that never did get into albums but are instead organized in shoe boxes!

(thanks to a tip from a kind reader pictures are now right side up!  Thanks Dimple)

Late in the afternoon I followed the advice of the article and wrote two quick letters that I had procrastinated over, - we took them down to the post office and mailed them, and now I can live a life "without regret'!!!!

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is the Sensuous S

S is for the Sunflower that Springs up in the Summer in Such Surprising Spots and Speaks to our Souls of the Spirit of the Sun which So delights us and helps to Sprout the Seeds, So that next Summer we will have even more Sensational Sunflowers!!

Van Gogh  

Sunflowers and Pears

For more interesting takes on the letter S click here and visit ABC Wednesday

with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her Sunny crew of helpers.

The wild November come at last

Beneath a veil of rain;

The night winds blow its folds aside,

Her face is full of pain.

The latest of her race, she takes

The Autumn's vacant throne;

She has but one short moon to live,

And she must live alone.

Richard Henry Stoddart   November

I am restless these days.  I think it is the change of seasons, – ten days ago the valley was filled with glorious light and colour, and now the wind is raw and cold, the sky is grey and dour, the sun just slides above the hills, and goes immediately into hiding.  A few days ago there were interesting rolling clouds, some of them reaching half way down the the mountains,  but now there is a pewter lid on the sky, and here we are, worrying about whether the roses are well enough protected from this early winter weather, blown by the wind when we do go outdoors, getting out scarves and boots and hats and warm coat,  and just being generally at sixes and sevens….

In a few more days surely the Christmas spirit will appear, – or at least a realization that there are dozens of things that will require doing in the next six weeks, and that they will all delight me in the doing.

Today, in fits and starts, I have been refurbishing the computer with music, and many of the CD’s I have ripped have been carols and beautiful Christmas music.  I left them on long enough to transfer them, and then went on to the next disc, but the Schubert I saved for last and have been listening to The Trout this evening while I knit around and around on a handsome pair of green socks with white stripes.  Two more pair after this one is finished, and then I will look elsewhere for knitting to absorb me in January.

This morning, looking for some comfort food to jolly up the day, I made a nice puffy golden bread pudding and we had it with yesterday’s clam chowder, (which I made for the same reason)!

Maybe I will make Christmas lists tomorrow to stir my heart a little into bearing with this sorrowful weather.  Or perhaps it will snow, solving the rose problem and making the world beautiful and delicate and pure again.  Which reminds me of a hymn I love…..

All beautiful the march of days as seasons come and go

the hand that shaped the rose has wrought the crystal of the snow

has sent the silvery frost of heaven, the flowing waters sealed,

and laid a silent loveliness on hill and wood and field.

O’er white expanses sparkling pure the radiant morns unfold,

the solemn splendours of the night burn brighter through the cold,

life mounts in every throbbing vein, love deepens round the hearth,

and clearer sounds the angel hymn, good will to all on earth.

Frances Whitmarsh Wile, 1911

the melody is Forest Green by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

William Wordsworth said it first,

'The world is too much with us;

late and soon, getting and spending,

we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours.'

I take my book to bed with me.

'Life is a Miracle, an essay against modern superstition' by Wendell Berry and I come to the sixth chapter.

This is a library book, but someone has been here before me, underlying very faintly Berry's comments on Science and Art in which he observes that these disciplines are neither fundamental nor immutable, but are instead the  'cultural tools' of our society.

'Science cannot replace art or religion for the same reason that you cannot loosen a nut with a saw or cut a board in two with a wrench.'

Wendell Berry is writing about the lack of conversation between the disciplines in higher education, and he goes on to point out the necessity for these tools to be used in collaboration in order to 'build and maintain our dwelling here on earth.'

The further I read the more my head nods in agreement.

When we ask if Science and Art  are at odds with each other and think constructively about this question we see that science means knowing and art means doing and that 'the one is meaningless without the other.'

I go on to the next chapter where Wendell Berry observes that at one time these disciplines were thought of as ways of being useful to ourselves and to each other, to help us to be self-sustaining and useful members of a community, and to see that this way of living survived the 'passing of the generations.

But then along came Professionalism, rather than Vocations and professional education became mere job training or career preparation, abandoning the ideals of service and good work, citizenship and membership in a community.  To quote Wendell Berry, 'the context of professionalism is not a place or a community but a career, and this explains the phenomenon of 'social mobility'..........'the religion of professionalism is progress......professionalism forsakes both past and present in favor of the future' and 'is always offering up the past and the present as sacrifices to the future, in which all our problems will be solved and our tears wiped away - and which, being the future, never arrives.'

'The present is ever diminished by this buying and selling of shares in the future that

 rightfully are owned by the unborn'

This is the answer, but what is the question?

Wendell Berry is a writer of immense imagination, but what drives him is his passion for the land and for a way of life that protects the earth and inspires a reverence among people that is mirrored in

their stewardship, their awareness, their fidelity, their commitment and their place in 'community'.

He questions the collaboration of a 'pillage and run' science with the same type of industrial corporations which has imposed a virtual total economy where everything has its price and materialism reigns supreme.

He laments the corporate freedom to pollute and exterminate and what he feels is the dominant tendency of our age, -' the breaking of faith and the making of divisions among things that once were joined.'

'Suppose', says Berry,' that we could change the standards....  Suppose that the ultimate standard of our work were to be, not professionalism and profitability, but the health and durability of human and natural communities.  Suppose we learned to ask of any proposed innovation the question that so far only the Amish have been wise enough to ask.  What will this do to our community?

Do you agree that not all the contributions of science in the last one hundred years have  been of benefit to society and that many of them have caused  regretful changes to our morality?

'Suppose we attempted the authentic multiculturalism of adapting our ways of life to the nature of the places where we live.  Suppose, in short, that we should take seriously the proposition that our arts and sciences have the power to help us adapt and survive.  What then?'

I cannot possibly impart here all of what I deem to be the wisdom contained in these few pages, but I will take the book to bed with me again tonight and re-read them in hopes that the ideals they espouse will be recognized  and the future for our children and their children will not be as bleak and lacking in the richness of  reverence (that word again) and appreciation for the sublime gifts of nature and the strengths of community; the neighbourliness; the building of trust; a return to simplicity and an understanding of the benefits of minimalism and kindly awareness.

"The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love"

William Wordsworth

ABC Wednesday

The letter R

R is for ROSE

'Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone

All her lovely companions are faded and gone

No flower of her kindred, no rosebus is nigh

To reflect back her blushes and give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one, to pine on the stem

Since the lovely are sleeping, go sleep thou with them

Thus kindly I scatter thy leaves o'er the bed

Where thy mates of the garden lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow when friendships decay

And from love's shining circle the gems drop away

When true hearts lie withered and fond ones are flown

Oh who would inhabit this bleak world alone?

This bleak world alone.

Poignant words by the Irish poet, Thomas Moore in 1805.

The melody composed by George Alexander Osborne from Limerick City

Here is the last rose of summer in our garden, before the first snowfall

and a sweet rendition of the song 

For more interpretations of the letter R visit here at ABC Wednesday,
 with thanks to Mrs. Nesbit, her helpers and all participants.

November Morn

It was frosty on the pasture early this morning, as November roused himself to pay a visit and remind us all that paradise doesn't last forever.

For a little while the roses in the garden glittered with an icy frosting

I have made a little Mind Map of the things I have to do today to get ready for Remembrance Day.

A ham to bake, and a pot of chili in the slow cooker.

Stacks of laundry from my foray into the linen closet yesterday

(and which today only requires ribbons tied around the stacks of towels and bedding

to make it look like the perfect Martha Stewart Cupboard!)

A new loaf of bread to set in the bread machine,

where it can mumble and grumble and come out

smelling delicious, square and crusty and inviting.

I put in a load of laundry, I start some music and then the Chili.

As I add the last of the onions to the meat and the peppers and the mushrooms

and the beans I see Charles getting the SUV out of the garage.

A honk, and then an invitation to go for a drive!

The chili will cook while I'm gone.  I will make the bread in the afternoon.

I put on a jacket and am off with the camera;  oh, careless of

all responsibilities, but the merry-go-round only goes

around once with the brass ring.....

The clouds are moody, but the valley still glows with a muted gold, - the grasses

range from a beautiful naples yellow to russet and greens

and down at Ginty's Pond a few ducks mess about in the far reaches amongst

the logs and bullrushes.

The birch trees are barren of leaves but their trunks have a silvery glow

Old familiar spots, - you've been here before, but have you ever seen them looking so 

lovely, so rich, so jewel-like????