The old year ends, the new begins

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

 That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

George VI famously quoted that piece in his 1939 Christmas broadcast, the first Christmas of the war, and it remains the most popular quote for the start of each new year.  I like it for it does not speak of New Year Resolutions but of confidently facing whatever the year will bring.

Realistically speaking most adults know that New Year Resolutions have little chance of success but there is (for me at least) a sense of quiet excitement at the start of each year.  Resolutions may be ineffective but it is good to use 31^st December to draw a line under anything that has gone badly in the year and to look forward gladly to whatever next year may bring.

May you be blessed in 2015.

An end to seclusion

Few people can have had a quieter Christmas than me.  I came home from church on Christmas Day, shut the door and didn’t open it again until this morning.  I had a few phone calls but Christmas is a time of quiet seclusion for me.  I have plenty of invitations but I prefer solitude for this very special time

I decided that today was the right time to end my seclusion with a trip to Normanby Park.  I made a flask of coffee, wrapped up warm and off I went. 

It was so beautiful there!  There were few people about in the early morning, just a few dog walkers.

The ducks had decided that it was too cold to go swimming.

The trees looked magnificent in their winter nudity.

The walled garden has been largely cleared and the soil left bare to allow the frost to deal with the pests.

I had wondered if these beauties would have been put over the rhubarb to force it.

But no, Victoria is still exposed.

It was a wonderful to ride around on my trundle truck.

And even better to get home to slow cooker chicken casserole

My favourite nativity set

This is unheard of for me - a third post in one day!

I've just been reading back over my own blog and a few days before Christmas I wrote about this lady, reminding us that at that time (17th December) it was not yet Christmas.  I mentioned then that she was the harbinger of my favourite nativity set and that in due time, I would also put the full set onto the blog.

So here it is.  No magi yet.  I love the way the front two sheep look towards the mother and child.

Thanks

(Coo, two posts in one day!)

When I was a little girl my Mother told me that a gift wasn’t really mine until I had said thank you PROPERLY.  Saying thank you properly, according to Mother meant you either thanked somebody face to face or you wrote a letter.  A phone call was not enough.

I was never wholly convinced by this theory.  I overheard other grown-ups thanking Mother for my letters and saying that they could never persuade their children to write.  Then later I would hear Mother muttering that other people didn’t make their children write.  One year I suggested I sent back a gift which I didn’t want anyway to save myself the bother of writing.  The memory of the ensuing explosion lives with me to this day.

However, I still place a very high priority on saying thank you but these days I sometimes use the phone.  Sometimes though it is nice to sit down and write a short note.

This year I have actually managed to make my thank you cards as well as write them.  I hope the recipients enjoy receiving them.

Because I enjoyed making them far more than I enjoyed writing those letters when I was a child.

The shepherd who was late

Last week my American penfriend commented on the other blog that her grandaughter had broken a shepherd from the nativity set and although a new one had been ordered it meant that they were having a variation on the bible story because the shepherd would arrive after the magi.  I sent this story but as I did only three “pauses” during Advent I’ve decided to add this one.

The shepherd who was late

I was pretty cross that night.  First of all something woke me up.  I always feel a bit ratty when I get woken out of a deep sleep and whoever it was woke me also decided that it might be a good idea to sing to me.  They were wrong.  It was a bad idea.

And it wasn’t just one guy who was singing: it was a whole crowd of them and boy were they loud!  “Glory to God in the highest and peace, good will to all men.” 

Well, I suppose that was better than my brother's usual version of the dawn chorus but anything would be better than that.  Somehow though the light was even brighter than it usually is when I wake up and I really couldn’t look.  The singing went on and on and they were going on about a baby born in Bethlehem.  So what?  Babies are born every day.  And about this being the Saviour we’ve been waiting for.  Yeah, right.

Anyway, the light suddenly faded and the singing stopped and it was quiet again and I was ready to go to sleep but the others had obviously decided that it was a good time for a chat.  Idiots.  Then, would you believe it, they decided to go into Bethlehem to see this baby.  Oh wonderful – not!

No way was I going to get up and go down to Bethlehem.  Forget it.  I need my sleep. 

Anyway off they went to Bethlehem and off I went to sleep.

The next morning they were full of it.  They’d seen the baby and his mother and they were in a manger in a cave near the pub just like the voice had said.  They kept going on and on about it.  I got fed up and couldn’t stand it any longer so I went to watch the sheep.

But, you know, they had made me curious.  I didn’t want to know – but I did want to know.  Torn apart I was.

A couple of weeks later it was my day off and I decide to go to Bethlehem.  I needed to see a few people and when I’d finished I went to the Lamb and Flag for a pint.  Or five.

A few hours later I sort of rolled out of the pub and was about to go home when I saw a lantern burning in a field and I could hear voices.  It sounded as though it could be a party so I went over to check it out. 

You have never seen anything like it.  There were camels and pack mules and various servants hanging around and over near the cave there were some fancy looking chaps.  Well, you have to see what’s happening, don’t you?  So over I went and guess what?  They were looking at the baby too.  They’d brought some very fancy presents.  Gold (always acceptable), frankincense which will keep the flies away, and myrrh which will be very handy when the baby starts to cut his teeth.

And so I looked at what had made my mates drool, at what had made these strangers travel hundreds of miles and all there was - was a baby.  But you know what?  He looked at me and he smiled.

You know I think I am the luckiest man in the world.  I saw the strangers, the baby smiled at me, and I didn’t lose my sleep that night.  My mates saw the baby first, but I reckon I did pretty well too.

Last gift finished.

I feel safe in putting this one on the blog as there is little danger of it being seen before tomorrow.  I finished the last couple of stitches in it just before lunch.

Here's one of the motifs.

I love this time on Christmas Eve.  It's too late to do anything else: all I can do is relax.  Brilliant

Preview

Like most people I haven't managed to get as much made for Christmas as I would like and not everything that I make can appear on this blog but I know that the recipient of this doesn't read my blog.  She asked for a tea cosy.  She likes spotty things and she likes owls.  I hope she'll like this!

I'm not sure why his ears appear so odd - they look OK in "Real life"!

What on earth?

It’s over forty years ago now but I’ll never forget that night.

It’s pretty cold out in the fields at that time of year but somebody has to be out there keeping an eye on the sheep.  There’s always a wolf about and at that time there were hundreds of strangers about for that census.  I never trust strangers and I wouldn’t have put it past that lot to have nicked a sheep for supper.  Anyway there were just four of us; me, my brother Reuben, and Seth and Ben our cousins. 

It was just gone midnight so we’d got the sheep settled in the fold and we were all of us dozing by the fire.  In fact I think I’d actually nodded off.  Suddenly it was all very light.  Well sometimes you get a flare up of the fire but that would barely last a second and this was much brighter and it went on.  Then there was a voice and I was definitely awake with my hand to my stick ready to fight off any thief.

It was no thief.  I just couldn’t see what it was because the light was so bright but it would be a very odd thief who would sing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will towards men”. 

Reuben wanted to take charge but he could hardly speak.  No, whoever had that voice was definitely in in charge.  And he’d brought his mates and they were singing so loud that Reuben wouldn’t have been heard anyway.  All we could do was cower and listen.  The voice went on about a baby being born down in Bethlehem and that this baby would become the Main Man promised by God.  We were supposed to go down into Bethlehem to see him and we’d find him in a manger.

Just as suddenly as the light had come, it went but by this time all four of us were wide awake.  For a while none of us could speak but somehow we all knew that the sheep were going to have to be left.  We had to go to Bethlehem. 

Anyway, off we went down the hill.  I have to admit that we felt better when we saw that the light had moved to just over the pub but as we got closer we realised that it wasn’t at the pub – it was behind the pub near a cave in a field.  Pity that, I think we could all have done with a bit of Dutch courage.

Anyway, we went to the cave and it was just like the voice had said.  Just a woman and her baby, curled up together in a manger.  Nothing remarkable.  Just a woman and her baby and the old man watching them.

And I know that this sounds daft but the remarkable thing is that it was so unremarkable.  Young women have babies every day.  Husbands look stunned when it’s happened.  It was the light outside which should have been so remarkable and to this day I can’t explain it.

But, you know, the light didn’t mean anything at all.  It was the baby.  So ordinary.  Nothing special.  But somehow I knew things would never be the same again for me.  I can’t explain it; you’ll just have to take my word for it.  Nothing has been the same since that night.