Seasonal

[callmemadam]

It’s the first day of meteorological winter, apparently. The weather is suitably cold and the bird bath frozen solid. A cock pheasant has been patrolling the garden this morning, adding some brilliant colour to the wintry scene. Melissa Harrison’s lovely anthology Winter is back by my bedside and it’s now decent, IMO, to mention Christmas. My Jacquie Lawson advent calendar has been activated.

I’ve dug out the Christmas display china and some of it is in the dishwasher right now. No decorations for me for quite a while but I may put up the advent candles on Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent.

Word of the day from The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities is ‘obstrigillation, the action of opposing or resisting; an act of defiance … a word dating from the early 1600s in English … its roots lie in a Latin word, strigare meaning to come to a halt.’

I don’t know why winter makes me think of medieval scenes, but it always does.



This picture from here.

Comments

[suzy cuthbert (from livejournal.com)]

I have the Winter book on loan from the library at the mo - all sorts of good bits in it.
They knew how to do snow in Medieval times!

Sue from The Cottage at the End of a Lane

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

The Winter book is my favourite of the series.

I can't bear to think of how cold and dark it must have been for them!

[mouse.livejournal.com]

It's definitely winter. It's really been brass monkey weather and we actually had quite a lot of snow last night.

I like your china plate. I have a couple myself but I think yours is nicer.

I won't put my decorations up until after I'm back from Lisbon. I say decorations but really it's just my tree and a few Christmassy candle holders, knick-knacks and fairy lights here and there.

I was excited to open my Jacquie Lawson Advent calendar this morning and I couldn't resist changing my layout to a Christmas one. I'm such a child :)

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

No snow here yet, thank goodness.

The plate was a bargain buy at the market; cute!

I find I put up fewer decorations every year but I can't do without lights.

Those calendars are such fun! Good value, considering it's like a card a day. I got mine free by renewing my membership.