Evening

Yesterday morning I saw a satellite that for a minute I thought was a plane and I thought...
Orion is my favourite constellation
and Venus was bright in the sky tonight
but there are still clouds that hide the moon
even when it shines full and bright
and when the sky looks empty,
there are still people up there,
and even if we are alone in the galaxy,
some of us will still be scared,
the moon you see is the same one they do
and the man or the rabbit is just an illusion
even science can't explain everything,
sometimes it's all confusion.

One Single Impression 

Sign

So I finally have a minute of time so I decided to say: I am still here.
It even seems hopeful that Sunday will be creatively fruitful.
In the meantime...
This is an interesting sign.

Back to school after a nice but chaotic break although holidays are usually supposed to make you more relaxed rather than less but anyway work seems to be and have been piling up so I will probably be hibernating in a little cave somewhere 'out there' until sometime next week if not later. Too bad.

Christmas Round-Up

This Christmas was lovely and family-orientated. Among the gifts I received was a book entitled Abandoned Mansions of Ireland, by Tarquin Blake. I saw the author featured on Nationwide and asked for the book. I never expected it to be so amazing! The photos showed heart-wrenching desolation. To see the hallways where Austen-esque ladies and lords strode now in utter ruin and left to crumble until all that remains is rubble was extremely saddening.
Below is my favourite photo of the book:

The reason I find it so striking is the bath that has not quite fallen, still clinging to the floorboards, reluctant to part with a memory of water.

Another photo that is sad is actually two. The first is an old photograph of how the house once looked, the second of how it looks now. It shocked me when I turned the page.

The last photo is two as well but on the same page. It's a dance hall. You can see an old photo of dancers posed in front of that lovely circular window and to the top left, what that dance hall is now.

I would recommend the book to basically everyone. Whether you love old castles, Jane Austen, writing inspiration, reading cool old legends, local history, or the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, I really think you will love this book. I have already had many ideas for stories/poems from it. Tarquin Blake can be found at his website, Abandoned Ireland.com, and there you will find even more old country homes with impressive 360 virtual reality photos.

I also received two books of Wordsworth's poetry and one of Yeats's. I have been reading them lately and, funnily enough, Abandoned Mansions of Ireland has a Yeats quote on page one.
Below is our small but impressive Christmas bush.

What I Believe About Christmas

I always liked the story of Jesus as one of many other interesting stories I became familiar with as a young child. I never singled it out as a story of a divine being or a superhuman man but just as a story that could still inspire and awe like so many others that were neither biblical nor religious.
For me Christmas is important because of the sense of community. Any single person can chose to give gifts or donate to charity or decorate a tree at any time in the year but the knowledge that so many others are doing the same thing at the same time is very powerful and it's like an inside joke that you can see reflected in everyone you meet on the street.
Personally I feel it is unfair to celebrate Jesus' birth on the 25th of December as it prevents people who don't believe in the Christian tradition from joining in in the same way as Christians. I think that Christmas should remain a holiday that nearly everyone celebrates in order to spend time with family and give gifts to loved ones.
The significance of Jesus' birth has already been totally overshadowed by consumerism and the "true meaning" of Christmas is never the same. So why not celebrate Jesus' birth when time can be devoted to just that celebration and not combine Santa Claus with the birth of the saviour?
Christmas is confusing (no matter what you believe) because there is no set of directions for celebrating it, or rather there are just too many sets of directions. I'm not trying to add my own set of directions, just saying what I think about Christmas. You'll notice it's different from what you think and from what your friend thinks, but the two of you don't think the same thing either. The point is, don't try to tell someone how to celebrate or what to celebrate on the 25 December because you can never get it right.

Two Christmas Videos For You:
The Digital Story of the Nativity
Advent Conspiracy

New Pens!!

I was happy to wheedle MM into buying a set of nice pens for me last Saturday. They were reduced from €10.00 to just €2.50. Check them out:

There are six in total with a selection of refills in three colours for each. The colour is gold and silver, a little less rich than pictured. One of the things I have discovered due to using a fountain pen daily (since early November at least) is that the secret to good handwriting is actually the pen. There is a reason that handwriting from fifty years ago looks so much nicer, and that is pens were nicer fifty years ago. Nowadays pens are like fast food; inexpensive but cheaply constructed. You can get them for convenience but the best are worth paying more for. And you can still find quality goods on sale.

P.S. MM posted again! Actually I copied and pasted from her Writing4all.ie account but she knew I was doing it. If you want to check out more of her writing, she has quite the on-line presence there. I will be trying to get more of it on here in the coming days (first full day off: 24 December) so expect to see some more orange writing.

The Visitors

It is I who chooses the time.
It is I determines the place.
All I ask is that you be present.
And whether you be in slumber, or naught,
I take no heed.
My needs are few, my requirements even less.
It is enough for me to encounter icy roads and careless drivers.
What is a slip of the scalpel when your time is nigh.
Or, a misguided drunk.
Accidents happen.
All it takes is a lift of my hand.
Then the sweet rush of air I so willingly ingest on your last exhalation.
I am death.
No appointment necessary.
Ever.

To view on Writng4all.ie click here.