"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die."

Carrie Fisher

Happy Holidays

"Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit

In judgment at a thousand miles away,

With the short vision of a single span?"

Dante Alighieri, Paradiso

Canto XIX, lines 79–81 (tr. Longfellow).

S.Michele in Isola, Venice. 

dedicated to Saint Michael, 

the holder of the scales on 

Judgement Day.

Venetian Boats

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing 

- absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply 

messing about in boats.” 

Ratty

Still cold here.

Fog in Venice

"it is bitter earnestness
That makes beauty; the mind
Knows, grown adult.
A sudden fog-drift muffled the ocean,
A throbbing of engines moved in it,
At length, a stone's throw out, between the rocks and the vapor,
One by one moved shadows
Out of the mystery, shadows, fishing-boats"

from Boats in a Fog

by Robinson Jeffers

" The Yachts

contend in a sea which the land partly encloses

shielding them from the two-heavy blows

of an ungoverned ocean"

from The Yachts

by William Carlos Williams

"The army all saluted

As they marched along the road.

Was it the King? Or Kitchener?

No. It was Mr. Toad."

This morning on a visit to the blog "Beyond The Fields We Know", 

I was taken with the photo for the Yule season. I decided to arrange

a bit of seasonal cheer myself and brought out the Nutcrackers. 

All I can say is the collection started innocently enough with one.

http://www.beyondthefieldsweknow.org/2016/12/calling-sun-home.html