December Favourites

 I think 2025 was a long hard year for many - so I hope 2026 brings at least some good things.

My header photo is our neighbour's lobster claw shrub which overhangs our side gate and sheds copiously into our back yard, but which is very pretty at certain times of year. The photo was on a very frosty day last January - and it looks as if we have plenty of cold weather on the way in the next couple of weeks. 

I don't actually have many December card favourites - one Christmas card, one Paul Klee-inspired card and a thank you card which will go to my sister-in-law who always hosts a family get-together a day or two after Christmas. I think this was a hard one for her, because their brother who died in September was the next in age to her, and in recent years he had always been with them on Christmas Day.

Peaceful Wishes

 For Christmas Day and the holiday season...

We visited Wild Lights in the zoo again this year, after having taken a break for a couple of years. This year they were calling the theme "Kaleidoscope", and there was a rainbow zone and then several zones all themed around different colours. There was also an underwater "tunnel" with the fish and sea creatures painted on fabric with I guess maybe some fluorescent and some interference colours, so they were very hard to capture. I'm adding just a few photos here and if you have time for an album of about 100 images (winnowed down from over 300, and given how crowded it was, that was pretty good going!) you can find it HERE.  We were lucky - there was a storm earlier in the week and that afternoon when I was cycling home from my work Christmas lunch, I saw signs saying that it had been cancelled. It was a fine dry if slightly cold evening for us, just about perfect.