solstice and then some

Its been a funny old day...

First of all, after the longest night, we had the winter solstice at 10.03, heralding the lengthening of days. D had left a special artwork on the labyrinth last night, where it stayed for 24 hours to let the elements finish do their magic. He did some more this morning and I took photos (see extra).

Joanna had a jewellery commission to deliver in Thornhill and we went for a coffee at Thomas Tosh cafe, aware that this is a pleasure we may not have again for some time to come.You can see in the second extra that Joanna dressed for the occasion. On our way home, we passed a house which was lit up for the charity SANDS, complete with fake snow falling on the drive.

We had hoped to see the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter but rain was falling. D did another painting of them instead. Because of the wet weather, I put off my intended bivvy, but later on when we went to retrieve D's solstice work, there were stars out and beautiful noctilucent clouds.

I spoke to Sarah as she walked home from work (her bike had a puncture). She has been assigned to the adult (Covid) ICU over Christmas as they are so short of nurses and so full of patients.

We watched half of a film called "Tenet" which messed about with the direction of time and seemed appropriately strange for a day in which reality sometimes felt a little elusive :-)