Three Kings…

 

“We three kings of Orient are

Bearing gifts we traverse afar.
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.”

 

The famous Christmas song, written by John Henry Hopkins Jr. in 1857 is actually the first widely popular Christmas Carol in the USA.

 

However, as a child I had actually never heard of anyone celebrating Three Kinds Day and it wasn’t until I first came to Europe that I discovered this tradition. It takes place on January 6, twelve days after the birth of baby Jesus and supposedly his baptismal day. Various scholars have now been able to access old documents other than the Bible where there is actually little mention of this event, and presume that they may have been 12, like the 12 apostles.

 

In any case various countries celebrate, usually with a type of pastry: in the case of Europe most often a round, wafer-type pastry filled with almond paste and in which a “king” and a “queen” are placed so that the person getting them in their portion becomes king or queen for the evening. In some countries (Portugal, Spain) ceramic figurines have turned into collector’s items.

 

So enjoy the end of the Christmas festivities and may you all be king or queen of your dominion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just start

 

My calendar screams at me.

Just start says the many self-help articles be it on diets, changing exercise habits, re-decorating, starting or ending a relationship – they all basically say “just start”.

But what?

• ·      My autobiography? That’s been started, then stopped – always something easier or more interesting to do.

• ·       Sorting out the house? Ditto – always, always an ongoing task, one that at times seems endlessly unsolvable. I waver in between the “I need to get it into order so that my children don’t have to stress so much” and “They are going to inherit, let them do the work”. And wavering is about as far as I get.

• ·      Cleaning something, anything? I do try and do a so-called Spring cleaning, year-round. Sometimes it’s undoing the pipes under the sinks and cleaning out the gunk, sometimes it’s the more mundane “the cleaning lady is gone – do the housework”; but occasionally I actually do sort a cupboard or something that one does occasionally: yesterday I actually defrosted the freezer in the kitchen (ok partly so that I wouldn’t have to face the larger task of defrosting the freezer downstairs, still it counts, doesn’t it?).

• ·      Filing all those bills and receipts from last year? Ugh, but it will have to be done.

• ·      Clean off my desk? I have done that in the last six months, enough is enough.

• ·      Before Christmas, it’s start the Christmas baking: ok that’s done for another year.

• ·      Start my Christmas letter? Oops, Christmas is over. Still that’s something I do yearly if for no other reason than to leave my sons with a condensed version of our lives, so still needs to be done even if I no longer send it to 100 people.

• ·      Start writing all those who sent me messages and cards? It will happen, just not perhaps today.

• ·      Start a new book? No problem, do that all the time. Not always an informative nor intellectual one, still I read as I always did.

• ·      Start one of the outstanding and planned photo albums? Will address that another day as the sun is out and I can go for a walk.

• ·      Start a computer game? Hmmm that one is never a problem, current passion Majong.

• ·      Start a blog? Hey I just did.

 So that’s enough for today, I started something and now I say Just Stop!

 

Bath bombs…

 

For want of a better word.

 

I have a dear friend, one on whom I can count to gift me with some of those lovely Lush bath bombs.

 

Last night I actually had time to use one. I tried, I really did, but it is beyond my upbringing and my frugal, close-fisted, penny-pinching and saving soul to actually use a whole one at a time, but she will be happy to know that I did manage to let it fizzle and spin until half was gone!   

Wonderful – looking forward to the next bath already!

 

A "Lush" bath ball

 

 

 

The same as it fizzles, swizzles and bubbles

 

Push the stop button, or

 

Life in the slow lane.

I hadn’t really planned it that way and it certainly hadn’t been a consideration when we made our bookings for a week out of town with just my son, his wife, the toddler and the baby, but in retrospect that is what it was.

 

Life was reduced to the basics: grocery shopping on a large scale once the day after we arrived and once on a small scale for essentials to finish the week. The days were “occupied” with holding the baby, playing with the toddler, talking and laughing together, making meals and precious little else.

 

There is a moratorium on screens for the toddler so even the adults, by the time all were settled for the night, or in the case of the baby, for a few hours, we were too tired to want to even turn on the TV, who’s remote controls ended up on a beam within an hour of our arrival: toddler has a thing for buttons, for screws, for drawers, for finding whatever it is that you might not want him to find.

 

We had plenty of windows, thus light even on the rainy days, we made small trips to neighboring attractions, we had a view of mountains and a lake in a corner: in short it was a wonderful, unplanned, disconnecting from our normal lives.

 

I for one could have happily continued, but “real” life would have intruded sooner or later as bills need to be paid, tasks accomplished, friends seen. However, I highly recommend that everyone push the stop button occasionally: it will do your souls, not to mention your health a real treat.

 

 

The view from the “throne”

 

Or a great holiday week.

 

I have been blessed many times over, in particular in my son’s choice of wife and their willingness to let me be a part of my grandson’s lives. I say grandsons as the older is now 2 years and 7 months (its all counts at that age, his counting in French is excellent and the English is coming along) and the younger 5 weeks.

 

As a protective father my son wasn’t too enthusiastic about our wish to have a small family week together right after Christmas, but my DIL and I said, as long as there is a hospital within easy reach it really isn’t an issue. We found this most beautiful Airbnb in Marsens, Switzerland and up we came.

 

The view and “throne”: I ended up in the master bedroom with its’ attached bathroom, including the washer and dryer nicely hidden behind cupboard doors. From the toilet (isn’t “throne” a much better moniker?) I look, during the day, out of the window that looks out on the countryside: at night I look up at the big dipper through the skylight directly about. Lends new meaning to “the throne”!

 

 

View out the window of one of the bathrooms

 

365 days, or

 

A New Year has arrived.

 

One wouldn’t think that the changing of a year could be so important, but somehow this year it is. We all awoke with the hope that life would be better this year, that we could finally put behind us the monumental changes that the pandemic brought, that we could

right the wrongs done to others and perhaps to ourselves, that we could be a kinder, gentler version of ourselves, in short that there will be a new beginning.

 

Personally, last night as we had our dinner and drank our champagne talk turned, unplanned and we rather pleasantly surprised ourselves, to the good things that had happened in 2021. Each of us came up with more than one would have thought given the anxiety of the past days, weeks and months. All this proves that there is always good even during the worst of times that looking for the good is much more fun and relaxing than enumerating the bad.

 

I have never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions, but we have all been given a clean slate, one on which we alone can write this coming year’s events. Let us try and create a nicer, a friendlier, a happier year. Let us be gentle on ourselves as well as with others; let us see the sun and not the shadows, in short let’s live each day as if there were no tomorrow; we have all seen how quickly life can change.

 

Look for the friendship, the love; be open with strangers, a new friend may be lurking just around the corner; treasure old friendships, family, colleagues, neighbors; be the best person that you can be – it’s easier than you think and much more rewarding.

 

Hope for a better future, not only for oneself and family, but for the world; in doing so one contributes to making it a possibility. Invest in people – that’s the only worthwhile investment; but above all be kind to yourselves.

 

It’s a New Year, it’s a new beginning: make the most of it so that at the end of another 365 days you can look back and say 2022 was a Good Year, let’s continue that way.

 

Sunrise over the mountains

 

 

Done, finished, gone…

 

Hallelujah the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice is now behind us and with it the shortest day of the year. Although days will not get longer quickly, they will at least not get shorter!

I always look eagerly forward to the date as of the beginning of December – sometimes even the end of November – especially since where I live close to a large lake we have what we call the “eternal gray”, days where the high-lying fog doesn’t lift as the sun isn’t strong enough nor long enough to burn through.

Last Sunday I did get above it – well worth it to just see that the sun does still shine.

 

Anyway now we can look forward to not only the holiday period, the end of the year, the beginning of a new one, but also to lighter and longer days. The mood improves by leaps and bounds.

 

Sunset in the mountains - above the fog the 19th of December