Trees I see

In summertime at home, as I ride my bike through neighbourhood streets, I mentally greet each tree I pass. And so now, on these winter days when I'm lucky enough to h've escaped the snow and ice and am able to walk warmly around a California block, I absorb the sight of plane trees, gums, palms and many more. This made me think I'd like to share something of what I see with you. Here's the first photo, one of an extraordinary old plane, the first of several that I meet:

That horizontal branch is at least a foot in diametre, and at least ten feet long. These several trees remind me of a painting by Van Gogh that I had the privilege to see about eighteen months ago, although his trunks stand more perpendicular.

Here's a second pic, taken from the other side.

It's amazing what presence a tree can have, isn't it?

How did angels lose their colour and why?

This will be my last post until some time in January, always excepting if something flutters by and settles disturbingly or enchantingly in my brain!

Anyhow, those who know me well know that I love to visit museums and art galleries. Usually I like to buy a couple of postcards as a memento... they're so reasonably priced and every now and then I take a look through my collection... or part of it!

At this Advent tide, I've been looking at angels, also inspired by the Twitter trend #angeltrail. I also enjoyed the Text Santa Downton Abbey spoof. In that, one of my heroes Joanna Lumley (so gorgeous) appears all dressed in white, with white wings, as an angel.

Going through my cards this morning I found this one 'A Choir of Angels' Simon Marmion (active 1449, died 1489) from the National Gallery in London:

So full of colour, aren't they? And as I recall, most angels up till the Renaissance at least, wore colourful robes and sported colourful wings. Probably some art buff (maybe my son-in-law Richard Ian Heys.. I'll have to ask him) would be able to tell me at what point in our history angels came to be white, but I have to wonder 'why'. Any thoughts?

Monday moan day

Not about life, you'll be glad to know, but once again about words and how they're increasingly being used. Or, in my book, abused.

First of all, I'm busy revising a teen novel intended for the North American audience. This means that I'm slaying 's's, in particular all those that go forwards and backwards and towards. These need to read forward, backward and toward. Why that is, I have no idea. Who decreed this to be standard usage? I note the trend in texts from the UK too, so have to think American colonialism is spreading ;-)

Another trend I've noticed while we're on this spot is the use of 'forward' instead of 'foreword'. I note that if I spell the latter without a middle 'e' my spell check changes to forward. Hey folks, the two are different.

So.

Now another usage that distresses me (chill, Brenda, chill) is the splitting of cannot into can not. It struck me that spell check might be the culprit, but it seems that isn't the case. Now I ask you, don't you think it's kind of contradictory when someone writes 'can' and then straight away 'not'?

Okay. Got that off my mind. To compensate for the rant, here's a cute story for you. My friend Heidi's mother, after living here for years, is still more German than Canadian.  Heidi taught her small dog a trick. She'd say 'Chill, Charlie, chill'. Whereupon he'd cast himself to the floor, and lie sideways and still. Wishing to replicate this, Heidi's mom commanded 'Freeze, Charlie freeze', complete with guttural 'r'. To her disappointment, Charlie only cocked his head and looked at her with a puzzled expression!