A (slightly belated) happy new year, blwyddyn newydd dda, bonne année et bonne santé to you all. And a rather impolite but apposite b-off 2020…
I find that the New Year makes me philosophical in the same way that Christmas makes me gain weight: not with complete awareness nor willingness but with a sighed resignation and a promise to act upon it. Just not immediately. These thoughts I tend to get during my first (pre-dog walk) coffee of the day, or whilst putting off the tax return.
Yule has two weeks to run before the long-awaited Imbolc, the cross-quarter herald of spring when the buds are more than green-whispered promises and the yellow flowers are in their pomp. I have been working from home assisted by snacks and ditherings, so all I have to offer is another montage of Watson Jones doodles and musings. He is keen to appear in a book alongside Montgomery mouse and Mavis the robin. I know Mavis refers to a song thrush but it was also my nan’s name and she was lovely.
Look after yourselves, cadwch yn iach,
Guy
Cast:
Eloise: my wonderful wife has been co-editing a new Mabinogion: re-told by contemporary Welsh writers, with a foreword by the actor Michael Sheen, it is an enormously ambitious, bilingual behemoth that has been launched by Unbound, a reader-driven publisher. For those of you less familiar with The Mab, it is a collection of ancient stories from British and Irish oral tradition. Heroic, surreal, passionate and generally bloody, with a giant thrown in. Here’s the link to it: The Mab by Matt Brown and Eloise Williams: Unbound
Watson Jones: our seven year-old sage, sleepy, grumpy and yet very friendly cairngorm terrier. Smelly, scruffy, nosey, noisy, never nasty.