Tuesday 31 December 2019

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my friends and readers

New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch

"Geschichtenerzähler"
"Storyteller"


I wish you all a wonderful reading year with many great books.

Monday 2 December 2019

Happy December!

Happy December to all my friends and readers

New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch


"Märchenzeit"
"Time for a Fairy Tale"



December is greeting me with a misty morning. Seems like November. Well, all the seasons are different nowadays. 

We've had a busy month with visitors and celebrations. But we've also both been sick, so no blogging was done. And no reading which is even worse. Let's hope December is going to be better.

December was called Ærra Gēola "Before Yule", or "First Yule"by the Old English Germanics and Hailag-mānod "holy month" in Old High German. It shows that it was always a special month.

The flowers of the month are the holly and the narcissus. 

The holly (Latin: Ilex) represents domestic happiness. We all like nature and there aren't many flowers around at that time of the year, so people used to take into their homes whatever showed some greenness. Druids believed that holly protected them against evil spirits. In heraldry, it stands for truth. And for all Harry Potter fans, his wand was made of holly wood. 

I always thought the latter represents Easter, but there we go. Apparently, you can harvest the bulbs in summer and keep them dried until the winter and they will bloom again. One always learns something new while researching a certain topic. In the Western culture, we see the narcissus as a symbol of vanity, in the Eastern culture it stands for of wealth and good fortune. Maybe the two are not too far apart? 

It is also the national flower of Wales, though, my son once mentioned, when little, that it should be the national flower of England since they had so many. 

Have a happy December with this beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch. 

You can find many more wonderful pictures on their website here.