Looking back, looking forward

As the year comes to a close I have been looking back

 at each month with gratitude for all the enjoyable moments

we've spent with family and friends. Being able to share

some aspects of my life here and there (UK and Italy)

with you, my blog friends, during 2018 has been a joy.

Wishing all of my blog friends a very healthy and peaceful New Year,

I look forward to meeting up with you once more in 2019.

My Week

It's been a busier week as we prepare for Christmas.

On Sunday morning, the 3rd Sunday of Advent,

 we went to church for a Sunday Family Praise Service.

At the start the third candle on the Advent Wreath was lit.

Nativity Crèche - waiting for Baby Jesus who will be placed
 in the crib on Christmas Night.

The weather has been a mixture of freezing rain or cold, 

but sunny days or milder weather. It's always good to buy 

a few extra plants that are hardy enough to be planted out.

Christmas decorations

Dancer the Reindeer

Family will be coming to see us.

The Nativity

(stained glass window. St. Nicholas's Church, Newbury, Berkshire)

Joining Riitta's Friday Bliss linkup

Liverpool visit

Now and again we've driven to Liverpool.

The famous liver bird image is everywhere and we were greeted by this big advertising structure as we drove into the city.  The liver bird is the symbol of the city of Liverpool and it represents a cormorant with a branch of laver seaweed in its beak.

Although there are several statues of the liver bird in the city, the most famous ones are on the Royal Liver Building at Liverpool's Pier Head overlooking the Mersey River, one on each tower, called Bertie and Bella.  They're easy to spot as they dominate the skyline and it's the only thing I remember about the Liverpool waterfront when I was brought here as a child by an aunt and uncle when I used to spend Summer holidays with them.  Bertie looks over the city and Bella looks over the sea.

The Royal Liver Building opened in 1911 and is home to the Royal Liver Assurance group set up to provide assistance to those who have lost a wage-earning relative.  It's one of the three important buildings on the waterfront which is part of UNESCO's World Heritage Maritime Mercantile site. The others are the Cunard Building, the Port of Liverpool Building and the trio are known as the Three Graces.

More liver birds and maritime symbols can be seen on this ironwork gate in one of the entrances to the main shopping centre, Liverpool One.

We drove along the Strand by the waterfront where there are many amazing buildings, old and new.

On the right is the red and white building, Albion House, which was the headquarters of the White Star Line (of Titanic fame) and is now an hotel.  The grey building opposite situated on Pier Head houses offices, the ventilation tower and control station for the Queensway Mersey River Tunnel. 

one of the tall ship trading vessels in Canning Dock

the rhombus-shaped building of RIBA, Royal Institute of British Architects

The Port of Liverpool Building (Edwardian Baroque- style architecture)

on the right

The Cunard Building (Italianate Renaissance/Greek-style architecture)

with the Liver Building in the distance

more of the docks at Pier Head

Our granddaughter went with a friend to see the city centre lit up for Christmas and she sent us some photos.

There were carols singers outside St George's Hall.

Liverpool One shopping arcade

down by the Royal Albert Dock

At the end of the walk hot chocolate must have been very welcome.

Here in Sheffield we're expecting snow sometime this weekend. 

Second Sunday of Advent, 9th December 2018

Tomorrow, 16th December 2018, is the Third Sunday of Advent.  In the church calendar it's called Gaudete Sunday so the theme is joy/rejoice.

Gaudete in Domino semper   "Rejoice in the Lord Always"

Friday Bliss # 13

Our daughter had bought a reindeer decoration which had been made with wood and logs. It was made locally for a national charity called Bliss which supports premature and sick babies. Money raised will go to a hospital in our region and our daughter has arranged to get one for us too.

In our house the Nativity scene has been put out, the Advent calendar hung up and the first candle lit for the first Sunday of Advent.  Behind each window of the Advent calendar there's a scripture verse telling the Nativity story.

I get most of my reading material on loan from the local library or buy them from charity shops, but I did order a book from Persephone Books, a publisher that specialises in reprints of neglected mid-twentieth fiction and non-fiction.  The Persephone Biannual Magazine is also sent out to regular customers and is always full of interesting articles and reviews. The book came in the post last week together with the Persephone magazine so I've had plenty to read for the times when I've been resting.

The Country Life Cookery Book was written by Ambrose Heath, the pseudonym of Francis Gerald Miller (1891-1969) who lived with his wife and daughter in Surrey. He had gone into journalism before he was 20 and he became a well-known cookery journalist and broadcaster. He wrote many cookbooks and The Country Life Cookery Book was first published in 1937. For each section of the book there are headings 'The Kitchen Garden in January' and so on with recipes using seasonal ingredients with advice on growing produce. There's a chapter on herbs, information about fish and a calendar regarding when to grow vegetables throughout the year. What also interests me about the book is the fact that the illustrations are by Eric Ravilious especially since reading more about his life and visiting an exhibition of his work during November 2017, Ravilious & Co.,  at the Millennium Art Gallery in Sheffield.  Eric Ravilious was born in Eastbourne in 1903 and went to the art school there and to the Royal College of Art.  In 1930 he married the artist Tirzah Garwood.  His work included murals, engravings, designs for china and water colour paintings.  He became a war artist in 1939 and sadly was killed in an aeroplane crash in 1942.

A library book I've been browsing through is Jacob's Room is Full of Books - A Year of Reading written by Susan Hill, an author I've enjoyed in the past.  It's another book that follows the months of the year and in this volume, a follow-up to Howard's End is on the Landing, the author writes about a year of her life through the books she has read, re-read or returned to the shelf.  I started reading the chapter for November, continued on into December and have found the every day, small observations regarding the place on the east coast of England where she lives just as interesting as her reflections on her reading and writing experiences.

She writes in December...
'Heron all over the mudflats.  I counted seven, which is most unusual as they tend to be solitary birds, still as statues, waiting patiently, ever watchful.  But these were pottering about.  Were they herons?
It was very cold.
Came home to light the wood burner and read Hugh Aldersey-Williams's biography of the eighteenth-century scientist Sir Thomas Browne.'

'I just went outside.  It smells of cold and the grass is crisp.  Wish I could find the poem I read many years ago, about opening the door at night and just standing, taking in what it is like out there...'

There's a list of books mentioned in this memoir. There are many authors in the list that I've not read. However, I've enjoyed my own reading this year and thankful that I've access to many interesting and entertaining books, whether regular volumes or audio books.

  joining Riitta for the Friday Bliss # 13 linkup