On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me –
Seven swans a swimming …
Nobody said the seven swans couldn’t include cygnets. Or that they had to be real swans. The silver swan is a nineteenth century automaton at The Bowes Museum, whose story you can read here.
There are some fun memes popping up among book bloggers as 2022 ends, All you have to do is answer (almost certainly untruthfully) a questionnaire, using only the titles of books you have read this last year. I’ve chosen two.
Here’s the first, introduced to me by Booker Talk
In high school I was: What was promised(Tobias Hill) ⭐⭐⭐
People might be surprised by: (the) Ashes of London (Andrew Taylor)⭐⭐⭐
I will never be: Dolores (Lauren Aimee Curtis)⭐⭐⭐, or Cecily (Annie Garthwaite)⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ or Joan (Katherine J Chen)⭐⭐⭐⭐
My life post-lockdown was: … I’m staying here (Marco Balzano)⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
My fantasy Job is: (on) The night boat to Tangier (Kevin Barry)⭐ ⭐⭐
At the end of a long day I need: A God in every stone (Kamila Shamsie)⭐⭐⭐
I hate being: Early one morning (Virginia Baily)⭐⭐⭐⭐
I wish I had: The wolf den (Elodie Harper)⭐ ⭐⭐⭐
My family reunions are: National Treasures (Caroline Shenton) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
At a party you’d find me: Night crawling (Leila Mottley)⭐⭐⭐⭐
I’ve never been to: Otherlands (Thomas Halliday)⭐ ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A happy day includes: Best of friends (Kamila Shamsie) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Motto I live by: Common decency (Susannah Dickey) ⭐⭐⭐
On my bucket list are: Owls of the Eastern Ice (Jonathan Slaght) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
In my next life, I want to have: Shrines of Gaiety (Kate Atkinson ) ⭐⭐⭐
The next generation discovers the joy of reading
Then Cathy introduced me to Shellyrae’s version. Well, why not?
2022 was the year of: The sweet indifference of the world (Peter Stamm)⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 I wanted to be: That bonesetter’s woman (Frances Quinn) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 I was: Taking stock (Roger Morgan-Grenville) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 I gained: Small things like these (Claire Keegan) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 I lost: Miss Benson’s Beetle (Rachel Joyce)⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 I loved: My phantoms (Gwendoline Riley) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 I hated: Red milk (Sjón) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 I learned: To cook a bear (Mikael Niemi) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 I was surprised by: Things that fall from the sky (Selja Ahava)⭐⭐
In 2022 I went to: The Underground Railroad (Colson Whitehead) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 I missed out on: Midnight at Malabar House (Vaseem Khan)⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 2022 my family were: Between the assassinations (Aravind Adiga) ⭐⭐
In 2023 I hope (for): The romantic .. (William Boyd) … Silver shoals (Charles Rangeley-Wilson). Both ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Because all but four of these books were borrowed from North Yorkshire Libraries, which continues, even now, to buy a wide range of appetising new books, I dedicate this post to Bookish Beck’s Love your Library
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me …
Six geese a laying …
Well the featured photo says they’re on their way …
Oh, I say! That’s cheating. They’re hens’ eggs, they are.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me ..,
Five gold rings …
This is a tough one. Well, look at these peacock-feather ‘eyes’. Are they, or are they not surrounded by golden rings?
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me –
Four calling birds …
On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me –
Three French hens
I can do this – hooray! Although … I’m not sure about the French bit.
But hang on a bit! We have the first day to worry about first …
On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me - A partridge in a pear tree.
Um, I can’t do a partridge. Will another game bird, a pheasant, do? And I can’t do a pear tree either. Here’s an apple tree.
On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me - Two turtle doves...
I offer you instead two common-or-garden wood pigeons.
I've an awful feeling I shall come to regret starting this: my photo archive is not stuffed with images of milkmaids - or lords a-leaping. Among other items mentioned in the song. I shall seek to rise to this self-imposed challenge.
… the season, whether for you it’s the Solstice, Saturnalia, Yule, Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa.
Being European, I’ve gone for Christmas, and this robin who lives in our neighbourhood may well have been posing all month to feature on local Christmas cards.
It’s been a busy week, and I’ve a feeling I shan’t be blogging again before Christmas, but I just had to have a go at posting a few photos for Ann-Christine’s Lens-Artists Challenge this week : Perfect Patterns. I’m going to let the images speak for themselves this time. We’ll have two galleries: man-made patterns, every one of them from Spain …
And now the natural world, not one of them from Spain, or indeed from outside the UK:
Click on any image to get its label: and only a label this time: no stories, no history, no nothing. Sorry!
The featured image is a ceiling in the Palau de la Musica, Barcelona.
Atlas bears the weight of the heavens on his shoulders as he gazes at Castle Howard. Who knew that the heavens constantly gush babbling geysers of water which then fall to earth? Those of us who live in England might not be surprised: this statue shows us that it must be so.
In Ancient Greek mythology, Atlas was one of a race of giants, the Titans, waging war on Zeus, King of the Gods. In defeat, his punishment was to spend eternity holding up the heavens.
As on Saturday, I’m taking refuge from the cold by posting pictures of sunnier times.
For Jez’s Water, Water Everywhere
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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