Winter Solstice

I want to send you my warmest good wishes for this mysterious and magical time of the year. When the world seems to slow, and if we listen to that age old message from Nature, we can let ourselves slow down too. We need peace and reflection, to gather strength for the next cycle of existence, chiming with the renewal of life in the early spring. Nicky Jevon our regular correspondent, and her husband Denis, have sent the solstice spiral, with their blessing to all. I have a set of beautiful photographs, and messages for you, again sent by my dear friend in Australia. Give yourself a few minutes peaceful beauty. It's at the end after all the news items. Will you be one of the 7% of people to send it on? I do hope so. It left me in a lovely calm space, with a rebalanced sense of proportion.

For me this has been a mixed year of fun and visits with friends, snatched outings to theatre and ballet, walking with my regular group in the Shropshire hills, and of course in Cumbria's Lake District. Highlights are always visits from my family. This autumn we managed almost a full complement for the weekend, and I'm looking forward to a couple of days with them all over the Christmas break, and after that to a few days Circle Dancing and singing with good friends, familiar and new music, and a few walks, in a familiar Lakeland setting.

Overseas readers may not know that Cumbria had truly awful floods a few weeks ago. I didn't try to go, but there were many aerial films on the net of the whole region, and my heart goes out to those people in houses, shops and schools, trying to get their lives back on to some kind of forward track again. We had a similar story here in Ludlow, two years ago, when our main road bridge washed away, but at least, unlike Cockermouth, we had a couple more we could use.