The Year's Turning

I can hardly believe that it is so long since I last posted here, the Winter Solstice and Yule have both passed and we are are almost into the New Year. Thank you to all those who left Christmas greetings in the comments, I read and appreciated them all.Above is Kaitlyn wearing her Christmas gift from Aunty Cesca and Uncle Neil when she was here on Friday. Teddy belongs to me but she has discovered him - and some of his friends :) - in the last couple of weeks and now loves to play with them when she comes over.



The season passed quickly and was very enjoyable, I received a lot of lovely gifts but one of my favourites was this lovely piece of Blue John from one of my friends. The area around Castleton in the Hope Valley is the only place in the world where this is found, I shall try and get out there and go down one of the mines next year and take some photos - if it's allowed that is.



Just before Christmas we had a really interesting talk on the history of hats at WI. The speaker brought dozens of examples and this was the oldest, it dates back to the late 18th century and is French, it is called a bergiere and is the sort of thing that Marie Antoinette and her ladies would wear when they played at being shepherdesses at Le Petit Trianon. If I let you guess from now until next Christmas I'll bet you'd never guess what it is made of! It is made entirely of -wait for it! - horsehair!! This was very expensive indeed as there was, as you can probably imagine, a fairly limited supply of it. It was mixed with plaited straw to make less expensive versions.



This is a 1920s hat and I really rather like it.





I was encouraged to try on this wonderful Edwardian creation afterwards, must admit I've always had a secret liking for these as being very flat crowns I can wear them whereas the modern day large hats with large crowns as well as large brims make me look rather like a mushroom on legs:)


This is a rather better view of the hat!



The last few photos are images from a recent walk, this one of a frosted angelica seedhead needs clicking to see how lovely it really is.



Bilbo Baggins who hasn't appeared very much recently.



This crow allowed me to get really close and take several photos,in fact he was practically posing for them.



I turned the camera up to catch the beautiful tracery of bare,black branches against a clear blue sky.

Hopefully I shall be posting more regularly again once we are past the New Year, I haven't had my camera with me as much as usual so 'must try harder' from now. Happy New Year everyone.