Browsing the online sales pages, I came across this:
On the other hand, years ago, an American colleague assured me that faux pas was pronounced “fox paw”. So perhaps this cushion is made from the fur of the Faux Mongolian – a relative of the Siberian Fox, I suppose, but adapted to a grassier terrain if the colour is anything to go by.
However bad the weather is when you’re reading this, I doubt any UK readers will be witnessing anything quite as extreme as that shown in the video of this news story:
What struck me, of course, was the “read more” headline at the end of the story. Why has the year 2014 been so hot?
There’s no poetry
in traffic jams:
we edge forward
foot by foot. Caught
behind a juggernaut
with no opportunity
to scan ahead for a turn,
we’re stressing
in the fast lane,
going oh
so
slow,
syncopated with
the nearside flow;
we can’t even
reverse.
This was not what I expected to find when I went for a walk today: 
There is no doubt some moral to be drawn from all this. Perhaps it’s a reminder that we shouldn’t assume everyone else is seeing things the way we do – that we are all in different places emotionally and physically, and our perspectives will differ accordingly; perhaps it’s a reminder that “Old Time is still a-flying”; or perhaps it’s simply a reminder that even in the middle of winter there are bright spots we can focus on.
——————
Edited December 28th to include additional paragraph:
The time stamp on the original blog post would suggest that I was at my computer writing rather than watching the Queen address the nation in her Christmas Day speech. Apparently, though, her message reached out, carried on the loyal air, to influence what I wrote. For others who weren’t watching her and who have avoided reading reports of the speech, I understand that she closed with the reassurance that, “even in the unlikeliest of places hope can still be found,” – a sentiment with which I must agree.
Today is the shortest day, but that doesn’t mean there is any less to do than usual, so rather than try and write a well-planned single-theme post, I am going to gather together a whole host of notes I’ve jotted down over the last few weeks, none of which is really worthy of more than a few lines:
Last week, I posted about the hippo at the manger; since then, it’s been pointed out to me that it isn’t really so out-of-line in these days of modern nativities, and perhaps if I’d seen the lobster scene from Love Actually I might have been less surprised.
The hippos weren’t the only things to catch my eye at the local exhibition, though; there was a Russian nativity scene that had me pondering:
Continue reading “unconsidered trifles and other seasonal fayre”
don't confuse the narrator 