The big anticlimax

I know it sounds a bit unspectacular as a title, and really it's nothing like that ...

We've had a grand time over the holidays, big French family Christmas, intimate small family new year. But the highlight of my season was the 21st of December. There was a time I used to have a party then instead of Christmas. Christmas is now huge fun with a large extended family. New Year in Oban on the West Coast of Scotland cured me of most of my antipathy towards that event. And getting through two events in a week is about as much as I can cope with these days. (It's the age says my 8yr old li'l lamb.) Thanks!

Still, on 21st, I had my little triumph when the sun decided to show itself towards the end of the day, and I was able to mark the point of the setting sun with a couple of stakes in the garden. This means that I know where to put up my standing stone when the ground thaws out. I found this big stone while clearing part of the garden last August, and have had it in mind to raise it up. But you need to know where to put it so it has some connection, and the winter solstice was the first obvious opportunity. The stone raising could happen on 21st March, 21st June, or during the festivities planned for August. We might even start a trend in March and do all three!