The days are getting longer again

3:00 pm on a December day
look how low the sun is in the sky

I'm a couple of days late with this post, but on the solstice I was laid low with a seasonal cold. My son brought it home from school and my own students were sitting in class with their colds. I was bound to catch it as my defenses were worn down. We are approaching the time when last year my father fell ill and the devastating news of Stage IV lung cancer was given to us. The days were definitely dark then for all of us. It was over quickly when Dad passed away on February 1st.

I'm listening once again to Rosmund Pilcher's Winter Solstice on my iPod. I first read this book when it came out back in 2000. I was a fan of her other books The Shellseekers and particularly September which I've read a couple of times. I purchased my iTunes copy last December so I could listen to it once again plus have it to enjoy every December.

It is a story tinged with lots of sorrow. There are tragic losses of life and of loves. But then there is healing and starting over. It is the same with all our lives. Last year we didn't get to celebrate Christmas with my parents as my father was hospitalized before we could gather, but we did bring him his Christmas presents to open. This year we prepare to celebrate but with heavy hearts. Yet life goes on and doesn't the solstice prove that. At the darkest point of the year the earth begins its movement back towards the point where the earth's axis will tip us towards the sun again. In the end of Pilcher's story all her characters take up the broken pieces of their lives and begin to fashion something new. So too will my family. We will begin new traditions holding onto some of the old and incorporating the new. It will never be the same, but it will be good.

Winter's coming

Frosty leaves

On Saturday afternoon we went for a walk in the woods and in patches the morning's frost had not yet thawed as evidenced by the pictures I have taken. It was a beautiful day for a walk, but we had to plan appropriately since the sun would be setting early. As we approach the winter solstice so we come to the day of the year with the shortest amount of day light here in the Northern Hemisphere. The Northern Hemisphere is tilted furthest away from the sun in its annual orbit. Man has used the key points in the earth's orbit to mark time - winter and summer solstices, and the autumnal and vernal equinoxes. They have made their calendars and built their temples/monuments to keep track of these days (think Stonehenge).

Now to continue with my December theme of books to read and re-read, I am currently listening once again to Ngaio Marsh's Death of a Fool.  This time we find Roderick Alleyn detecting the odd death of an old blacksmith who had been playing the role of the fool in a ritualistic winter solstice Morris Dance call the Dance of the Five Sons.

Frosted oak leaves

The ins and outs of village gossip, old traditions, and the fine art of police work all play key roles in this story. I am a huge fan of Marsh's fine dialogue and rich descriptions of the countryside. Plus she has such fine characters, and in her own words they are all "proper masterpieces."