(no subject)

[puddleshark]

***

It's grey. It's windy. But it's not actually raining. I really need to head out for a walk as soon as I have finished this mug of tea. Before it gets dark.

Not that it has really got light.

The sort of weather to make a photographer go back to bed and read detective mysteries.

***

Last dance practice of the year last week. Some of the dancers were wearing antlers, which gave the whole session a pleasing air of solstice ritual.

I have begun learning the dance I most admire - the one that is danced to the unsettling A minor hornpipe - but my word it is relentless. So much swinging. It is all "Change axis. Swing. Change axis. Swing." No wonder it is always practiced right at the beginning of the session, while everyone still has the energy.

At practice, there was a spreadsheet on the table with a list of all the folk festivals to which we have been invited next year. I have tentatively put my name down for Wessex, Lyme Regis, Winchester, Bradford on Avon, Swanage. (It doesn't look like we have been invited to Wimborne this year, though I've heard a rumour it's going to be more of a music festival in future, and won't feature dancers...) The dates are all far enough away that I don't have to worry what I am letting myself in for.

I really do not enjoy dancing out in public, and don't think I ever will. But it's payback for all the winter practice sessions which I do enjoy.

***

The Oxen
By Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

***

Wishing everyone a peaceful and happy Christmas!

Comments

[heleninwales]

I'm glad that you don't have rain at least. It's been relentless here. The playing fields in the distance are a lake and the bottoms of our gardens are underwater. This is just something that happens occasionally, so there's no cause for alarm, but I had hoped to venture out for 20 minutes this afternoon now the rain has stopped, but the path to where I intended to walk will also be flooded.

Re dancing in public, I think that will be one of those things that, though you may never get to the stage of enjoying it, it should get easier the more you do it.

[puddleshark]

The side didn't get to practice much last summer, so some of our dance-outs were a bit catastrophic! Everyone else in the side is used to this, and just laughed it off. But it really didn't help with my nerves. Perhaps I will catch some of the relaxed attitude of the other dancers next year...

[kaishin108]

Hope your dancing goes well this year!

Happy Christmas!

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

Hope you're having a good holiday!

[asakiyume]

A hornpipe!! Wow! I bet you're magnificent.

I love, in your photo, how the tasseled grasses mirror the water ripples. Love how your photos of grass and water capture movement.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

The dance, done properly, is very impressive... But I have a long way to go before I achieve magnificence!