Christmas Day

My cold is still around, sadly;  I'm also a bit sad that Christmas this year is wet rather than white.  But so far it's good, though the two Christmas services Ann and I have attended seemed a bit flat compared to past years.  I think that's as much to do with the weather as anything else.  Also, can I put in a word of complaint about the way people change the words of carols . . .

Looking at my garden, I see there are still roses out, though they do look a bit bedraggled now.  My bright orange geum which has bloomed prolifically all summer still has new flowers opening, and the G urbanum x rivale next to it is also still flowering.  Geum urbanum x rivale is a personal favourite of mine - a cross between two native wildflowers, one of which is on its own a troublesome weed, it has shapely flowers of a wonderful dusky yellow colour.  We have winter jasmine flowering too, but that's to be expected, while the others are a bonus.

Well, this may not be our garden much longer.  We'll have a challenge ahead, to make a new garden suited to our tastes and temperament, but we're very much up for that!  Meanwhile, I've been wished a 'merry New Year' today, which I rather like.  I'm going to work on that, I think - making 2013 a merry time start to finish.    By the way, I'm interested to discover that in Welsh one doesn't wish a happy or a prosperous New Year (let alone a merry one), but a good one: "Blwyddyn Newydd dda".  Perhaps that's a better mark to aim for.

Back to Christmas . . . when we got back from the midnight service, Ann and I trawled through the cards we received this year, to see what the most popular designs were.  Last year, robins took the prize, as I recall, but we only have five or six of them this year.  Unexpectedly, kings (or magi) win the day this year, with at least seventeen, beating snowmen (seven), shepherds (three), conventional nativity scenes (eight) and traditional snowy village scenes (seven) by some distance.  Kings weren't strongly featured in the cards I sent: the two designs I sent to most of my friends and contacts this year were a rather snowy sheep and a cartoon image of Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, though I also used a few cards left from last year, which did have kings on!

My poem 'Magi' follows, with appropriate picture . . .

So that was our reckoning, then:

Jerusalem, we considered -

and yet there remained an uncertainty in our calculation;

and with the camels surly and spitting,

and our porters shouting and cursing as they loaded our things,

and such a waste of sand before us,

we might have chosen not to go.

Our wives were tearful in their entreating:

Why leave your charts and your garrets?

Why leave your children, the pleasures and duties of home?

Why is it necessary to go?

Yet it is necessary,

though we do not know why;

there is a mystery at the heart of things

unrevealed by our ancient instruments.

But this much is clear as we pack our charts and boxes -

the star we have traced and measured

is not to be ignored.

A new light has ascended our heavens,

and has disturbed our hearts.

In all the expert accomplishments of our ordered minds,

we know what we have seen,

and we have seen what we do not know;

and from this beginning we must needs be drawn forward,

sent out, and cast adrift

to the forever changing of our lives

and despite our own lost selves.