it's no march, but it's a start
SARAH SLEAN RELEASING NEW ALBUM IN MARCH ASGLHKGH. This is, in a word, brilliant.
* * *
We went to get our Christmas tree yesterday. There's a tree farm about twenty minutes out; very lovely place -- apparently they don't get a great lot of business, so far as we can tell. Maybe they do it as a side thing. Anyway, you drive up, pick out a tree, cut it down, and take it home yourself, or you can pick one out and tag it and bring it home later. They're very inexpensive, and cutting down one's own tree is much splendider and more romantic than buying it from the Wal-Mart gardening centre, which is what we used to do. Dad and the siblings and I (minus Leandra) tramped round through bracken and long grass and, occasionally, thorns, in search of the perfect Christmas tree, which took a bit of time to find. It was so dry this summer that many of the trees are very brown, especially inside: we'd come across one that looked fantastic, pull apart the branches and take a look inside, and it'd be dry to the core. It was all very picturesque, though, and I wish I'd thought to bring my camera. (I seem to remember also thinking this two years ago, when we all went, and it was snowing.) Winter light has such an odd, thin, pale quality to it, and as we were driving home, the sun was setting through the pines.
Well, we've been wrestling with the tree stand all day and have come to the conclusion that there's nothing for it but to get a better one, cos our trunk is small and the tree keeps falling over and we do not want to tie it to the ceiling this year. Alas, the Christmas tree falling over at least once has become sort of a tradition hereabouts, it seems. If we get everything set, we ought to be decorating it tomorrow night. (We never decorate a tree until after dark. It spoils the magic. I love plugging in the string of fairy lights and holding the great length of them, like a line of multi-coloured fireflies, and winding them round the tree. Although then it gets very prickly and sort of deters from the romance of things.)
Also, at some point I need to talk about the spooky Victorian-esque awesome which is PJ Harvey's White Chalk. But I ought to give it a good, deep listen first. In a room with the lights out.
* * *
We went to get our Christmas tree yesterday. There's a tree farm about twenty minutes out; very lovely place -- apparently they don't get a great lot of business, so far as we can tell. Maybe they do it as a side thing. Anyway, you drive up, pick out a tree, cut it down, and take it home yourself, or you can pick one out and tag it and bring it home later. They're very inexpensive, and cutting down one's own tree is much splendider and more romantic than buying it from the Wal-Mart gardening centre, which is what we used to do. Dad and the siblings and I (minus Leandra) tramped round through bracken and long grass and, occasionally, thorns, in search of the perfect Christmas tree, which took a bit of time to find. It was so dry this summer that many of the trees are very brown, especially inside: we'd come across one that looked fantastic, pull apart the branches and take a look inside, and it'd be dry to the core. It was all very picturesque, though, and I wish I'd thought to bring my camera. (I seem to remember also thinking this two years ago, when we all went, and it was snowing.) Winter light has such an odd, thin, pale quality to it, and as we were driving home, the sun was setting through the pines.
Well, we've been wrestling with the tree stand all day and have come to the conclusion that there's nothing for it but to get a better one, cos our trunk is small and the tree keeps falling over and we do not want to tie it to the ceiling this year. Alas, the Christmas tree falling over at least once has become sort of a tradition hereabouts, it seems. If we get everything set, we ought to be decorating it tomorrow night. (We never decorate a tree until after dark. It spoils the magic. I love plugging in the string of fairy lights and holding the great length of them, like a line of multi-coloured fireflies, and winding them round the tree. Although then it gets very prickly and sort of deters from the romance of things.)
Also, at some point I need to talk about the spooky Victorian-esque awesome which is PJ Harvey's White Chalk. But I ought to give it a good, deep listen first. In a room with the lights out.