"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there",

from The Go-Between

by L.P. Hartley

A lovely Christmas gift from by brother, a bit fragile and some entires are bittersweet.

Snowflake, such a beautifully apt name for Snow Buntings. 

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" 

from The Great Gatsby 

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

"On he shuffles, quietly mumbling

Figures, facts and formulae -

Bats are busy in the belfry

In the bonnet hums a bee,

At the Reading Room he settles

Pince-nez on his bottle nose,

Reads and scribbles. reads and scribbles,

Till the day draws to a close,"

from A Ticket for the Reading Room

by William Plomer

Yesterday I took the dogs for a walk and ran into this flock of Grey or Hungarian Partridges on a neighbour's lawn. We used to see them in this area all the time but I have rarely seen them in the past few years so it was great to encounter these.

"The Calgary Fish and Game Association introduced gray partridges to Alberta around 1908, says Alberta Fish and Wildlife biologist Gordon Court. The first 15 pairs were from Hungary, which is why locals often call these birds “huns.”

from the St Albert Gazette http://www.stalbertgazette.com/The-running-of-the-Huns-20130821

"We are always getting ready to live, but never living."

Ralph Waldo Emerson