All Yule all the time now
Yesterday I delivered that project, so today I started my Yule vacation. I may have to implement some corrections Monday morning, but apart from that I'm off work now for the next three weeks. Today my plan was to go downtown, withdraw a whole bunch of money and go shopping. I needed to buy stuff for myself as well as a few Yule gifts.
I was lying in bed waiting for the sun to rise and the frogs and birds to start chirping (hooray Philips Wake-Up Light)! I was starting to feel pretty rested so I thought I'd check what the time was, if it was like 7:30 and I could get up ahead of the sunrise (which is set for 8). I have to put on my glasses to be able to see the numbers, so it's a bit of a decision to check the time, I can't just roll over and look. Okay, so glasses on, and the numbers said 14:41.
"NO WAY!" I roared, and got up to check other time pieces. Yes way, that really was the time. I had slept an extra nine hours without noticing. Over to the computer to check opening hours for the bank office I had to get to. Yep, like I thought, it closes at 15:00. This is an account that all my clients make their payments to, so that's where my money comes in, and the only way for me to get money OUT of it is to transfer it to other accounts or physically go to the bank office and make a withdrawal over the counter. Either way, I would not get any money until Monday. I was planning to spend hundreds of dollars on Friday evening and the weekend.
By this time the time was 14:45. The bank office is downtown. The roads were icy. I was straight out of bed.
There was nothing for it. I threw on a pair of jeans and was outta there like the Road Runner. Seriously, it was like something from a cartoon. I hopped on my bike, did wild-eyed, death-defying record time (insert sound effects and clouds of dust) and entered the bank office with nine minutes to spare, uncombed, unkempt, unbrushed, hoping they wouldn't take me for a bank robber. Got my money. Whew! Also got an ATM card for the account while I was at it. Didn't know those accounts had ATM cards!
We finally got some snow at the beginning of the week. Wonderful storybook fluffy white snow. It's been blessedly cold too, so the snow is staying. This evening it turned pretty biting cold. I took a walk out to the old site, and I felt the cold even though I was well dressed and walked at a brisk pace. The snow was glittering and every tiny twig was covered in frost. No moon, but plenty of stars. From the place where I used to live, I had a wonderful path out to the old site, a path where every part was loaded with magical significance. It's quite a bit different now, as it should be since so much of my life is different. The first part follows along a busy highway. I've chosen to live far from nature inside a city, so that's completely appropriate. Then the path turns to follow along an even busier, bigger expressway. But only for about a hundred yards, then it suddenly turns into the forest. A thin sliver of forest, where you can still hear the traffic, but yet a genuine bit of forest and very pleasant. After the calming forest walk you go past a few cute villas with gardens, through a walkway under the expressway, and then you're in a bigger forest. Quite some way to go, on a path that mostly winds along the edge between the forest and the fields. On your left you have the trees and the rising boulder-ridge, on your right there are big fields, covered with snow and hare tracks, and in the distance a pretty string of lights where one thin arm of Jackdawtown stretches all the way to the old site. The path is lit all the way to the juniper hill, where the running-track with the lamps veers off to the left, and the path to the old site continues straight ahead, right into inky blackness. No moon. The stars and the far off lights of the town, reflected in the snow, was all I had to see by. I used my cell phone to light my steps for a while, until my eyes adjusted. If you walk in darkness for long enough, at least ten minutes, your eyes slowly adjust until you can see even by starlight. It's pretty amazing really, like a super power.
Then you come to a place where the path goes a little bit into the forest. It's always dark there, even on the brightest sunny day, and a bit cold, and a bit quiet. Ever since I was a kid I've felt a haunting there. I'm never quite carefree going through that stretch of the path. Tonight, treading through the snow alone in the dark, I actually turned back to take another route. But I didn't want to. I kept arguing with myself about it. I had an appointment to keep and I knew I would be late if I didn't take the shortest path, but above all I didn't want to let my fear defeat me like that. After forty steps I turned back around and went to face it.
Walking across a white field, I rallied my spirit companions. I've often felt them beside me walking out to the old site, but tonight I realized it's been a while since I've called on them. I should spend some more time with them and not neglect them. Two of them were definitely with me anyway, and I gave them and myself a mental pep talk and gathered them around me.
We walked past the haunted place closely together. The haunting is at a specific place a few steps to the left of the path, deeper in the forest. There's a long wall of earth there stretching parallel to the path, and behind it a depression in the ground with an old concrete staircase with three steps, that you can't see from the path. You have to go into the forest and up on the wall. It used to be an outdoor shooting-range decades ago and I'm sure there were other things before that. It's quite close to the Viking time grave-field - who knows what you'd find if you started digging.
I could sense my spirit animals dancing and playing in the snow as we came out from the haunted bit of forest and had a clear view of the mounds. We walked past the place where I would normally turn left if I was going to my ceremony place, and instead took the path between the snow-covered fields and the vast area of smaller grave mounds. Finally you walk past the three huge mounds, imposing man-made hills about a thousand years old, and then you're there. At Odin's Castle, the restaurant where I was supposed to meet Annie and Charles.
When I say restaurant, it might sound like something out of place in that landscape of natural and historic beauty, but I have to paint you a little picture of it. It's a wooden house right by an ancient smaller mound of its own. The house was built in 1900 in a style that was supposed to look "Viking", as they imagined it at the time. It's oak timber and fireplaces and Viking murals and mead and just a wonderful, messy, quasi-historic, romantic place full of atmosphere and quite unique. This time of year, it's full of Yule trees and decorations and Santas. No inhibitions, no attempts to be all modern and "less is more", just smack it all up there, just the way I like it (when it comes to Yule!). I met up with Annie and Charles and we had a Yule buffet. Wonderful, traditional food in obscene amounts. I was feeling rosy-cheeked and victorious after my brisk walk and my brush with fears in the dark. Charles was amiable as usual, and Annie was looking quite pregnant. The baby was kicking. I just have to tell you one thing that Annie said, completely self-centered as it is. I came back to the table and she said, "I can tell you work out. That is one nice little bottom you've got. I was watching Charles walk away and then my eyes sort of slipped over to you, and I went, like, wow, not bad!" I was extremely flattered, who wouldn't be? :) Very pleasant evening. Annie was so relieved to finally be on vacation, she was a lot more like herself, all the work stress was gone and she's starting to plan and think ahead. I cheered her on all I could.
I was lying in bed waiting for the sun to rise and the frogs and birds to start chirping (hooray Philips Wake-Up Light)! I was starting to feel pretty rested so I thought I'd check what the time was, if it was like 7:30 and I could get up ahead of the sunrise (which is set for 8). I have to put on my glasses to be able to see the numbers, so it's a bit of a decision to check the time, I can't just roll over and look. Okay, so glasses on, and the numbers said 14:41.
"NO WAY!" I roared, and got up to check other time pieces. Yes way, that really was the time. I had slept an extra nine hours without noticing. Over to the computer to check opening hours for the bank office I had to get to. Yep, like I thought, it closes at 15:00. This is an account that all my clients make their payments to, so that's where my money comes in, and the only way for me to get money OUT of it is to transfer it to other accounts or physically go to the bank office and make a withdrawal over the counter. Either way, I would not get any money until Monday. I was planning to spend hundreds of dollars on Friday evening and the weekend.
By this time the time was 14:45. The bank office is downtown. The roads were icy. I was straight out of bed.
There was nothing for it. I threw on a pair of jeans and was outta there like the Road Runner. Seriously, it was like something from a cartoon. I hopped on my bike, did wild-eyed, death-defying record time (insert sound effects and clouds of dust) and entered the bank office with nine minutes to spare, uncombed, unkempt, unbrushed, hoping they wouldn't take me for a bank robber. Got my money. Whew! Also got an ATM card for the account while I was at it. Didn't know those accounts had ATM cards!
We finally got some snow at the beginning of the week. Wonderful storybook fluffy white snow. It's been blessedly cold too, so the snow is staying. This evening it turned pretty biting cold. I took a walk out to the old site, and I felt the cold even though I was well dressed and walked at a brisk pace. The snow was glittering and every tiny twig was covered in frost. No moon, but plenty of stars. From the place where I used to live, I had a wonderful path out to the old site, a path where every part was loaded with magical significance. It's quite a bit different now, as it should be since so much of my life is different. The first part follows along a busy highway. I've chosen to live far from nature inside a city, so that's completely appropriate. Then the path turns to follow along an even busier, bigger expressway. But only for about a hundred yards, then it suddenly turns into the forest. A thin sliver of forest, where you can still hear the traffic, but yet a genuine bit of forest and very pleasant. After the calming forest walk you go past a few cute villas with gardens, through a walkway under the expressway, and then you're in a bigger forest. Quite some way to go, on a path that mostly winds along the edge between the forest and the fields. On your left you have the trees and the rising boulder-ridge, on your right there are big fields, covered with snow and hare tracks, and in the distance a pretty string of lights where one thin arm of Jackdawtown stretches all the way to the old site. The path is lit all the way to the juniper hill, where the running-track with the lamps veers off to the left, and the path to the old site continues straight ahead, right into inky blackness. No moon. The stars and the far off lights of the town, reflected in the snow, was all I had to see by. I used my cell phone to light my steps for a while, until my eyes adjusted. If you walk in darkness for long enough, at least ten minutes, your eyes slowly adjust until you can see even by starlight. It's pretty amazing really, like a super power.
Then you come to a place where the path goes a little bit into the forest. It's always dark there, even on the brightest sunny day, and a bit cold, and a bit quiet. Ever since I was a kid I've felt a haunting there. I'm never quite carefree going through that stretch of the path. Tonight, treading through the snow alone in the dark, I actually turned back to take another route. But I didn't want to. I kept arguing with myself about it. I had an appointment to keep and I knew I would be late if I didn't take the shortest path, but above all I didn't want to let my fear defeat me like that. After forty steps I turned back around and went to face it.
Walking across a white field, I rallied my spirit companions. I've often felt them beside me walking out to the old site, but tonight I realized it's been a while since I've called on them. I should spend some more time with them and not neglect them. Two of them were definitely with me anyway, and I gave them and myself a mental pep talk and gathered them around me.
We walked past the haunted place closely together. The haunting is at a specific place a few steps to the left of the path, deeper in the forest. There's a long wall of earth there stretching parallel to the path, and behind it a depression in the ground with an old concrete staircase with three steps, that you can't see from the path. You have to go into the forest and up on the wall. It used to be an outdoor shooting-range decades ago and I'm sure there were other things before that. It's quite close to the Viking time grave-field - who knows what you'd find if you started digging.
I could sense my spirit animals dancing and playing in the snow as we came out from the haunted bit of forest and had a clear view of the mounds. We walked past the place where I would normally turn left if I was going to my ceremony place, and instead took the path between the snow-covered fields and the vast area of smaller grave mounds. Finally you walk past the three huge mounds, imposing man-made hills about a thousand years old, and then you're there. At Odin's Castle, the restaurant where I was supposed to meet Annie and Charles.
When I say restaurant, it might sound like something out of place in that landscape of natural and historic beauty, but I have to paint you a little picture of it. It's a wooden house right by an ancient smaller mound of its own. The house was built in 1900 in a style that was supposed to look "Viking", as they imagined it at the time. It's oak timber and fireplaces and Viking murals and mead and just a wonderful, messy, quasi-historic, romantic place full of atmosphere and quite unique. This time of year, it's full of Yule trees and decorations and Santas. No inhibitions, no attempts to be all modern and "less is more", just smack it all up there, just the way I like it (when it comes to Yule!). I met up with Annie and Charles and we had a Yule buffet. Wonderful, traditional food in obscene amounts. I was feeling rosy-cheeked and victorious after my brisk walk and my brush with fears in the dark. Charles was amiable as usual, and Annie was looking quite pregnant. The baby was kicking. I just have to tell you one thing that Annie said, completely self-centered as it is. I came back to the table and she said, "I can tell you work out. That is one nice little bottom you've got. I was watching Charles walk away and then my eyes sort of slipped over to you, and I went, like, wow, not bad!" I was extremely flattered, who wouldn't be? :) Very pleasant evening. Annie was so relieved to finally be on vacation, she was a lot more like herself, all the work stress was gone and she's starting to plan and think ahead. I cheered her on all I could.