Off to Loch Rannoch

Heading off today for a week on Loch Rannoch - these are place holder photos from earlier years, but be forewarned - there will be more to follow!

Thomas Hardy's The Oxen

lyrics Thomas Hardy's The Oxen

music Jonathan Rathbone

sung by Voces 8

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,”

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

(from Poetry Foundation website)

Music for a Dark Time

The Wexford Carol with Alison Kraus, Yo-Yo Ma, 

Natalie MacMaster (fiddle), Cristina Pato (bagpipes) 

and Shane Shanahan (percussion)

The Understory - 52 Sestudes on Trees

It's arrived - the book version of 26 Trees!*  Beautifully produced, you can order a copy here.  Proud to have been part of it!


* A joint project by the writers' collective 26 and the Woodland Trust.  You can see the full online version here, including photos and 500-word pieces on the writing of each sestude.