Happy Yule!

[Ninehostages]

The year has definitely turned - after months of insomnia and anxiety, last night I went to bed early and slept until noon today - I do not deliberately mark the turning of the year and the changing of the seasons, it is just that they seem to mark me.

So on the first day of the new year, astronomically - Veis heil, or wassail, or go well - or however you express it.

Astrologically, the conjunction of the two great planets moves us out of an Age of Earth into an Age of Air - odd how something defined centuries ago can suddenly seem relevant in a way which ten years earlier seemed to be insignificant. So here I am sending my best wishes over the ether to wherever on the globe you happen to be, and may this next year be less interesting for all of the right reasons.

Anne the Pleater.

Here is hoping that 2020 is not repleated.

[Ninehostages]

I learned something new yesterday from Lucy Worsley of the BBC. The well known Christmas Carol "O Come All Ye Faithful" appears to be a Jacobite call to arms. Who'd have though?

https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=7328

Anyway, I've done my military service and I have enough kinsman buried in Culloden's field, so I shall give it a pass this year.

[grizzbass]

If that applies to 1 1/2 to 2 centuries ago. It's not my specialty so just wondering.

I don't want to rain on your parade Bill, but mistletoe growing on oak trees in the UK is a very very rare thing. Actually, almost never might be more accurate. I have never seen it doing so. I actually took the trouble to Google the subject just and it confirms my experience. Mistletoe commonly grows on apple trees, poplars, hawthorn, limes and other trees, but not oak.

The mistletoe harvest down South, particularly from the fruit orchards of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire were/are harvested at this time of year and sold at a special one day market at Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire. In a good year for berries on the mistletoe, many tens of thousands of Pounds(£) of it were-----still are--- sold. I am not sure though, if the event has taken part this year for obvious reasons.