I like winter. Its pretty much my favourite time of year. I like the cold crisp mornings when you can see your breath. I like the clear blue skies, the dark nights, the snuggling up in warm jumpers and hats and scarves, the cold which makes your nose and cheeks red.

I also like the promise it holds. Yes, you may think I’m mad. Everything is cold and dark, the ground frozen, the trees bare. It barely gets light before its dark again, and in between often its cold and damp and miserable. But its in this very darkness and hopelessness that the promise lies. Its a moment when anything can happen, and you don’t quite know what it will be. When all sorts of things will come out of this emptyness, this darkness, and you just have to wait and see.

This year I’m trying to do that. To be patient. To know, and be convinced, that that frozen earth with yeild something fruitful. It is possible. The last year or two have shown me what can happen when you don’t expect it. I wonder what I’m not expecting this year..

Inspired by a recent post at lightbox.

A joint Christmas and birthday present from one aunt and uncle was a free stay for me and Chris in their flat in Paris. No way we were going to turn that down.. The bonus was that we were there for my birthday last weekend. My surprise birthday present was a meal on board the “Melody Blues” boat, with live jazz as we sailed up and down the Seine. Good food, good music, good company. Very Happy Folkie. Nuf said.

I recieved an email recently from somone producing an online guide to Toronto who wanted to submit one of my photographs to be included, and it got chosen! So now I’ve had a photograph published I didn’t especially take much time over it, I just liked the colours.

In the widget below you can scroll through the different sections of Toronto represented, and click on them to view the photos. Mine is in Cabbagetown, a district of Toronto named after the Irish immigrant workers who used to grow cabbages in their front gardens!