The Sunday Posts 2016/ Da Night at Christ wis Boarn

A lass, wis gaen ta cry,
ta Bethlehem cam, weary an makkin maen,
an fan dey wir nae wye
ta lay her doon, for aa da beds wis taen.

Da lodgin-mistress said
da byre wid hae ta du dem, till da moarn:
dere, twa clean windlins spread
athin an empty stall, Goad’s Bairn wis boarn.

 

A peerie whaig, wi a starn
athin her broo, wis tied apo da waak,
an, inbye i da barn,
wi sleepy peesters, hens upo da baak.

Whin aa wis ower an düne
da Midder’s een droopit in sweet relief;
Joseph sat winderin on
dis marvel at wis nearly past belief.

 

Dan suddenly, da lift
wis filled wi light an singin fae abüne! –
as Pretty Dancers shift,
sae moved da singers o da heevenly tüne,

an whin dey aa wir geen,
doon da lang hilly gait da shepherds cam,
winderin what hit might mean –
an ane wis kerryin a ting o lamb.

 

Dey cam in trow, an bent
afore da Infant in a glüd o light:
intae demsels, withoot a doot dey kent
hunders o years wid hear aboot dis night.

 

Stella Sutherland.

Photo Cathar Memorial, Minerve, Languedoc.

By Alistair.

 

     

 

Misery Bears Christmas.

A Bear is not just for Christmas.


As I raise a wee glass of something Scottish and take a bite of a mince pie - probably the first of many - I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas - unlike my wee pal Misery Bear above - and all the very best for a stupendous New Year from The Lovely G, Jess and I here in the house of Crivens Jings. Thanks for coming along with us in 2012. We hope to see you all again next year too.

Slainte!

Alistair.

The Christmas Sunday Post 2012

Christmas Eve

On window panes, the icy frost
Leaves feathered patterns, crissed & crossed,
But in our house the Christmas tree
Is decorated festively
With tiny dots of colored light
That cozy up this winter night.
Christmas songs, familiar, slow,
Play softly on the radio.
Pops and hisses from the fire
Whistle with the bells and choir.
My tiger is now fast asleep
On his back and dreaming deep.
When the fire makes him hot,
He turns to warm whatever’s not.
Propped against him on the rug,
I give my friend a gentle hug.
Tomorrow’s what I’m waiting for,
But I can wait a little more.

Bill Watterson

The Christmas Sunday Post

The silhouettes of leafless trees,
Are etched against the sky,
With branches spread like outstretched arms,
Forever reaching high.
The ebony of bark and bough,
Is bathed in pearly light,
As silver frost like tinseled thread,
Is glistening clear and bright.

It seemed as if a Winter sprite,
All dressed in frozen rime,
Has woven with an icy hand,
An intricate design.
By scattering his fairy dust,
On every naked tree,
Has clothed each branch and bough and twig,
In jeweled embroidery.

'Winter Sprite'
By Kathleen Gillum.

Gold, Frankincense and Socks

Please - don't give socks this Christmas.

Have a heart!


see you later.

Merry Christmas folks..

Just a line to wish you all a peaceful, happy and {relatively} healthy time this Christmas. While I'm not overly religious this is a Christian celebration so here is a favourite version of a well known Christmas song. While the music is beautiful the video is well cheesy, so sorry about that.

Winter Wondering

I wonder what colour a Smurf goes if you leave him outside in the snow?



See you later.

Driving Home For Christmas.

I can't help thinking how much I love driving a newly serviced car as I turn out of the garage forecourt and onto the main road. The engine is silky smooth and purrs quietly as the accelerator is pressed and the car surges eagerly forward and picks up speed. The steering feels tighter too, altogether more satisfying, comfortable and more responsive to my hand on the wheel. This year, for the first time, I've invested in a full set of winter tyres – a direct result of my experiences in last year's horrific winter driving. The expense is something I could well do without so close to Christmas, especially the combination of tyres and service, but somehow that thought is far from my mind as I approach the first roundabout and appreciate the better grip on the cold roads surface. Confidence plays a large part in my enjoyment of winter driving, realistic confidence in my own abilities and confidence in whatever I am driving. The car feels in tiptop condition and that breeds confidence. I can't help but smile at the feeling. 

Stopped at the roundabout I wait for the traffic to pass by and my eyes are drawn to the scene across the road and fields in front of me where the slope of the escarpment overlooking Dunbar and the surrounding area rises steeply from the flat farmland. I follow the slope upwards in the late afternoon light, appreciating a beautiful but subtle green that’s somehow clear yet barely showing in the fading light. On the crest of the hill there is a line of evenly spaced, low trees silhouetted perfectly against the petrol blue sky that you sometimes get here in the earliest part of an encroaching winter evening. The sky is pristine in its clarity and my eyes continue to be drawn upwards through the imperceptible changes to the inky blue that shows at high altitude - this evening seemingly lit from behind. The view is breathtaking in its simplicity and heart stopping in its purity and it captures my attention for a long moment where thankfully no other cars come up behind me. To set the scene off there is one single star hanging an inch above the tree line. I look left to right across my view but there is nothing else in this perfect sky.

I smile again as I put the car into gear and move off, taking the first left and the road to the village. The scene I've been looking at moves to my right shoulder and I glance again thinking that it would be perfect on a card.

Somehow, it suddenly feels like Christmas.

 See you later.

Dear Santa......

Dear Santa,

Are you the good guy we think you are?

 Sure, Christmas is great and all that - but are you really the benevolent character we all take you for? You certainly have some incredible housebreaking skills and all this do-goodery is a great cover story for some good old-fashioned burglary or a multitude of other nefarious activities. Your P.R. skills are also certainly up there with the best considering we spend so much time and effort these days telling our children to avoid strangers except in safe environments like school. Heck we’ve even turned our schools into virtual mini-prisons to keep out unsafe adults – an example of creating anxiety in our kids where there is almost no risk - yet we happily tell them that you will come into their bedrooms at night and leave them presents – if they’ve been good. We even tell them not to be afraid if they wake up hearing someone in their room and that they should just pretend to be asleep and not to look at you { that’ll work very heavily in your favour in any potential ID parade you clever old rascal }

And that disguise? Genius! You’ve made a disguise out of the most identifiable and high visibility clothing you could possibly wear, making sure that even CCTV Camera’s won’t be able to pick out any identifying personal features. With all that bulky clothing you could be anything from the most obese burglar in history to a complete anorexic with access to industrial quantities of padding. You’re supposed to be old but you might not be – you certainly aren’t as old as the stories suggest. What an incredible feat! Way to go sunshine!

 

There are some weak points in your strategy though, which I’m sure you must be aware of; all those mince pies and sherry have to slow you down a bit { and make me veer towards ‘the most obese burglar in history’ theory } and the getaway vehicle not only isn’t the fastest option you could have come up with but is also stand out conspicuous in all but the most rural areas. Despite this, probably due to the laxity of our police and the ineptitude of air traffic control staff over the holiday period, you’ve managed consistently to evade detection. Yes we have all seen the photos of Santa being given a parking ticket or the videos on ‘Youtube’ but these aren’t you are they? This is yet another genius stroke in the master-plan. You’ve generated – spawned even – a whole slew of impersonators with which to confuse and convince society that it’s all a fantasy. Absolute bloomin’ genius mate. Well done indeed.

Yes, you’ve created a cover story perfect for the most gullible or sentimental elements of our society, built it up over a significant period of time { clearly a master of planning and organising } and woven it around the most fantastical garb that hides you in plain sight. Your transport appears ridiculous but evades the most elaborate detection systems modern technology can produce. You telegraph the time of your crime yet create a perfect alibi by ensuring multitudes of lookalikes may be culpable – some of them who don’t even get dressed up because they’re in their own homes – and at the appointed hour you do your stuff and apparently disasppear like you’ve just gone up the chimney.

Or is the there an even more elusive side to the story? Are you simply an extra savvy entrepreneur who's moved to the Arctic Circle because of tax breaks, lower environmental standards and an abundance of cheap elf labour?

Whatever the truth I'm still waiting for the flamethrower I've been asking for for the last three years. This year Santa, please – get your act in order. There are so many places I'm planning to visit with my new toy.

See you later.

Listening to:

Merry Christmas, Darling.........

Cape Wrath Lighthouse.

Hullo ma wee blog,

As I get older I like to hear or read news, whether its newspapers, evening news programmes or news bulletins every half hour on my favourite radio station. It keeps me in touch with whats happening around the country, nation and around the world - well what they want to tell us about anyway, but that's another post -and somehow I feel better for it; grown up, able to have an opinion on whats happening, informed and more appreciative of far away places and goings on, perhaps even moved to want to persuade my government to do something or to change my ways to help reduce global warming or change my view on some part of current affairs.

I remember my parents always being determined to hear the 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock news from the BBC and as a child not understanding, and as a teenager scorning their need to listen to 'gossip' and 'hearsay' about folk and places they would never meet or visit from our parochial lifestyle.

I have come to to wryly appreciate some of the odder curiosities that drop out of news now and then to trigger my senses of fun, irony or just plain sarcasm.

The header for this post is the start of an imagined conversation between Kay Ure, and her husband John, who live in, and run a cafe from, the lighthouse keepers cottages at Cape Wrath at the tip of Scotland. Cape Wrath is the most northwesterly point in Scotland, and boasts Britain’s highest sea cliffs. Customers face a ferry ride and a three-hour trek up a stony path before they reach the most isolated café in Scotland.

Kay left home on the 19th of December to travel to Inverness, over a hundred miles away, to do the Christmas shopping, and was only reunited with her husband yesterday afternoon, having been trapped by the bad weather. John managed to get to her yesterday having finally made it across the Kyle of Durness in his boat and crossing the remaining miles of snowy road in his 4 x 4 all terrain vehicle. They are planning to have their Christmas dinner together today. A lovely story full of human interest and just the kind that gets my attention. I bet they don't dream of a white Christmas again any time soon.

And I hope she didn't forget anything off her shopping list......

Today too, I see in the Scotsman that one of my favourite singer songwriters of years past, Billy Bragg, is urging people to join his facebook campaign in his refusal to pay their income tax in protest at the bonuses to be paid out to RBS bankers unless they are curbed by the govt. Its fantastic to see that the socialist firebrand of years past is still fighting the good fight even though he is greying round the edges a bit. It made me think of my favourite album of his 'Talking with the Taxman about Poetry'. All great stuff, full of fire and brimstone, bursting with energy and righteous indignation.

So why do I feel a wee bit piqued that he is doing it all on facebook from his cosy farmhouse in Dorset.

see you later

Listening to Jackie Wilson 'Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher'

I'm Dramming of a White Christmas..........

Hullo ma wee blog,

Well, its Christmas eve and the snow is all around for the first time in years. The cupboards are groaning with food and drink of all descriptions. Friends and family are locked and loaded for the next week or so and there is time for carousing and conversation, for fun and laughter, giving thanks and for quiet reverie, time for hugging and kissing and being cosy warm, for opening presents and bottles, for bubbly and the water of life, for good books and favourite films, for snowy walks and holding hands. Times to savour in the coming weeks.

And there will hopefully be some time for you too ma wee blog. In my very first post I said that I was going to treat you like my imaginary friend and I have. Its been interesting, its been fun and its been helpful. You've led me to others with very different lives, to comments to and from places I have never been and you have also reflected back to me my sense of humour and my stupidity. You have helped me look through sunny days and sleepless nights and to put myself in context of a bigger world and reminded me so much, despite what has been jamming my brain cell, of people and places loved now and in past times. Thanks for that, I hope there will be much more to come.

And to those of you who have taken time to come and visit, just to read, or to comment and to suffer comments in return, who have shared through your blogs of your heritage and history, your loves and fears, your hopes, interests, your families and your passions, and of life the universe and everything, often in such interesting and inspiring ways, I also say thanks and I hope there too will be much, much more to come.

But for now, mince pie in hand and a raised glass, MERRY CHRISTMAS to you, one and all.

Cheers!!!!!

Listening to carols on Classic FM radio...