New Year 2017

         A view of the early January skies - The Crescent Moon and Venus. And the top of my 'magic apple tree'. I like to think of it as a magic apple tree, after the one in Susan Hill's book of the same name. This is part of my quiet space; a silent, wintery moonlit sky, a bare magic apple tree, dormant, hiberating, a sense that this new year is beginning slowly. All is well and I am also re emerging slowly, feeling the air around me.
          Wishing you a magical joyeous and wonderous 2017.

"On clear winter nights, I go outside and stand underneath it (the apple tree), look up. Through the bare, down-curving branches, I see the moon, ringed with frost, and thehard, bright points of the stars in a cold sky. The apple tree contains them within its shape and forms a shelter over me, it gives a framework to this place, the cottage, the garden, the near countryside, and to my vision of them. I should not like to lose it".