Last Hurrah

A few choice pictures from the last week of 2013, on the last day of the year...

 The last of the very berry chocolates from the House of Chocolates sent to the family for Christmas from my sister in Oz. Thank you B! A sweet present indeed.

Franklin Road lights and entertainment, Christmas Eve

Christmas morning: a tree overrun

Giving back - to some surprisingly hungry quack-quacks,
 the left-over bread from the Christmas stuffing


Breaking Bad and laughing long.  Xmas: it's all for the (big) kids!
(except for the chocolate)

This Blissful Break

In the aftermath of the Xmas storm
before the New Year is busily born -
unto resolution ruin

When even Time takes a break
to stretch out and be blameless;
unresolved and shameless

The streets sense it and slow,
the cars take their break
to know

What bliss it is to break
without braking,
to move without shaking,
to give without taking,
to live without faking

To bask, to the tender last, before
we begin again to be bitter
trying, as we will, to be better.

'Tis the Season

To hope -



We give as good as we get
And get as good as we give

To know that we are loved
And love, whatever we know

To forgive what we can
And fight fairly what we cannot

To have faith in truth
And trust in the universe

And give thanks;
For to give is sublime

Son

            

No greater risk
No keener reward
No sweeter smile
No louder roar
No knowing less
No knowing more
No letting go
No going back to before...

A big man

What is it about Christmas...

that makes a girl think,

an eel slink,

a heart sink,

a dream shrink?

What is it about Christmas that makes -  

a big man small,

a small man fall,

the old young and

the young old?

What is is about Christmas...?

The Years of the Cat

Every year is The Year of the Cat
sleep all day, snack, snack, snack...

Dawn begins with a weight on my hip, with a claw that clings if I dare to turn or to tip.

A meow at my door when I'm trying to write: 'Let me in! I'm lonely! What are you doing? I don't like liver's bite!'

Come evening she simply won't have Joyce's book, and Dickens' heavier works get that 'It's them or me' look.

Now I'm not a cat person as it goes, per se, nor a dog lover could I be called, by the way.


But this cat on my hip at dawn, dusk and doors
has a very firm grip, with four very firm paws

So I say once again because that's where I'm at:
every year is The Year of the Cat.

A Tree Transformed

Our Christmas tree before and after, plus a lone Kingfisher gift from the man of the house aptly poised to watch over the transformation. Let the magic and madness begin...!