Clava Cairns Revisited

Another instalment of my 'Gothic Travels', which is something I want to focus on this year. Today's visit is to a 4,000 year old burial ground in the valley south of Culloden. I've been there before, and you can see the previous post (with really terrible photographs!) about when I went there for a Pagan gathering ::here::.

On February 4th, my partner Raven and I visited Clava Cairns near Culloden. We drove there, and parked up at the carpark on the site, which only had a couple of other vehicles. I was surprised that there was anyone else there at all on such a cold and frosty Monday afternoon; the carpark was iced over with compacted snow for the most part, and while it wasn't utterly freezing, it was cold enough not to melt the settled snow particularly fast, and even in what is a sheltered valley there was as a certain chill - perhaps the damp air from the river that runs under the viaduct further along. [The viaduct is pretty impressive, similar to the Glenfinian Viaduct made famous in Harry Potter, and it too has a railway crossing a valley, but this one is pink rather than grey; I will give it its own post]. 

Long shadows from a low sun beside the ring cairn; photograph by me.

I apologise for the lack of clarity and resolution in my photos - my camera broke last summer and I haven't been able to afford a replacement since then, so I'm just using the camera on my phone, which is average at best. Please click on photographs for expanded versions, especially the thumbnails.

Pile of rocks in the carpark. Photograph by myself.

There's what appears to be a small cairn in the carpark, just outside the boundary to the main complex of cairns. As it's not listed on the maps, and it's not in the enclave, I think it might just be a pile of rocks from levelling a flattish plot to make the carpark, or maybe an 19thC folly addition, or even stones removed in the 19thC excavations of the cairns; basically I don't know what it is at all.

Frozen meltwater in a depression. Photograph taken by myself.

Raven and I; cooperative selfie.

Clava Cairns is specifically 'Balnuaran of Clava', as there are other groups of cairns known as 'Clava Cairns'. There's also a ruined chapel and another cairn at the far end of road, which I have visited before in the past, but didn't visit that day. Nearby there are two other cairns in an overgrown field across the road from the enclave run by Historic Scotland, and also a standing stone in a field that sometimes has I think cows in it. Either way, the other two monuments and the standing stone are not open to the public as monuments, and while there is some freedom to walk in Scotland, these fields often have livestock, so going in them could cause a problem (Highland Cattle/Heilan' Coos are very cute but they are large animals with big horns! Be considerate of cattle and farmers if visiting.

The setting sun makes for a beautiful light over the cairns.

Reflected sunlight on ice.

Photograph by myself.

The enclave around the cairns is of old trees, planted between 1870 and 1871 by the land-owner at the time, who had the Romantic notion of the cairns being a 'Druidic temple' so wanted to plant it into a 'Druid Grove' - I think there are a few Neo-Pagans (Celtic, Druidic and otherwise) who are quite grateful for that, because it really does give the site a beautiful atmosphere of being encapsulated by nature, something simultaneously apart from the world and deeply within it. I'm certainly neither the first nor the best photographer to take advantage of the late afternoon light streaming between the branches and trunks of the trees, and I felt that the melt-water and ice from where the snow had been defrosting certainly did something to make that extra-special.

Sunlight streaming through the trees across where the snow has melted.

Near-to-carpark cairn. My photo.

The cairns are approximately 4,000 years old, and they were used as mausoleums of a sort. There are three large cairns and one small kerb cairn. Two of the large cairns have passage entrances aligned with the setting sun on the winter solstice, and the centre cairn is a ring cairn - a central sealed chamber with no entrance, a sort of stony donut. I've read that the stone circles around the cairns were set after the cairns ceased to be used for new burials. The ring cairn in the centre of the three is almost a wheel design, with the ring cairn as the hub and low stone walls as spokes out to the standing stones beyond. I think the standing stones are also on a celestial alignment.

A cleft stone - was it split by time and ice, or is it a pair?

Photograph taken by myself. 

Scarf to keep my ears warm.

Selfie by the larger cairn.

The far cairn is the smallest full cairn other than the kerb cairn. There used to be an infographic explaining the sunset alignment at the cairns, but I can't remember if it's still there, and if it was, it was buried under snow. I think the far corner cairn has a cup-mark in a stone within it, and was re-used as a columbarium around a thousand years after they were made, in approximately 1,000BCE. It was excavated in Victorian times, but it wasn't excavated with the modern techniques of archaeology, and a lot of data was missed, lost, or destroyed. I don't know if they disinterred any remains, and if so, what happened to the person who was buried there, but from what I gather, the cairn was the victim of overenthusiastic dilettante archaeology in the 1870s.

The far cairn, aligned with the sunset. Photo by myself.

In South East England, where I grew up, there was a theory relating the placement of barrows to either be prominent on the brows of hills, or to be near rivers, and while I think the builders of the cairns at Clava may have been culturally different, the cairns are hardly on a hilltop, but they are in a valley with the River Nairn flowing through - but I'm not an archaeologist (yet... I'm doing my second undergraduate degree part-time, studying joint History & Archaeology), and it is something I would have to read up on. There's been some interesting papers on the placement of chambered cairns on the Isles, but I don't know about the mainland. Definitely something I need to look into. 

Frosty ground. Photograph by Raven.

The Cairns are very popular in recent years due to the success of the show 'Outlander', as apparently there is some connection to the series. I haven't watched much of it, and the opening scene with early 20thC 'Druids' was filmed on a set on a hillock with foam stones, and Clava Cairns is apparently not the site mentioned in the books (a better candidate for that would be the stones that remain of the cairn at Dunain, which I mentioned in my previous blog entry about Ostara), so I'm not sure what the exact connection is, but it's something to do with magical standing stones as part of the time-travel in the story, from what I gather. They've actually become too popular, and have been damaged by people climbing on the stones, and on the cairns, dislodging parts of the rock walls of the cairns. Large coaches and heavy traffic have also caused an access issue for the garage that runs recovery/road-side assistance from a little further down the road - and therefore for the clients they were off to rescue from mechanical trouble. If visiting during busy season, I would suggest parking elsewhere and walking down, as it is a pretty and pleasant walk (there are also several B&Bs, chalets, etc. nearby for accommodation.).

A rather rectangular stone. Photo taken by myself.

Raven. Photo by me.

The ring cairn was buried under snow, as was a stone with cup-marks tooled into it. When we got to the far end of the cairns, a tour-bus arrived with a medium group of tourist, and the peace of the place felt broken, so we walked off to get a better look at the viaduct instead. I must go back there again this year, and take photographs in different weather and seasons. I follow #ClavaCairns on Instagram, and a lot of beautiful photographs turn up in that hashtag, which is quite inspiring. Hopefully I'll be able to afford a new camera soon, and thus able to work on bettering my photography. For now, I am doing my best with my smartphone and some basic editing software. 

Snow in the dying light; photograph by Raven 

As a historical site, I thoroughly recommend visiting them, just to get a sense of the size and scale of these cairns. As a Neo-Pagan, I visit to reconnect with the sense of place, with spiritual ancestors and those past practices that inspired me to a nature-based spirituality. 

We made a tiny snowman made from two snowballs with twigs for arms. 

It's also just a pleasant place to be. There are some picnic tables near by, plenty of wildlife lives in the area, and the trees are rather lovely. Apart from solemn contemplation, it's nice to enjoy yourself, and I don't think it is any disrespect to those who were buried there thousands of years ago - as long as that doesn't spill into the sort of exuberance that could damage the monuments or make it so other people can't enjoy their time there too.
[My apologies for the formatting errors with the pictures; the blogging wizard keeps putting breaks/paragraphs where I don't want them, even when I remove them in the HTML editor...]

Graveyards, Mortality and Snow

Back in early January, I went on one of my lunch-breaks to a Chapel Yard cemetery in Inverness. I had an extended break, and had time to take the bus from work into the city and then have a quiet stroll. When I got back, one of my colleagues was asking where I'd gone on my break, and when I responded with a graveyard, asked me if I was visiting a relative, and then got surprised when I said that I was just there for a quiet stroll, and thought it would be quite morbid. I think this is a fairly standard reaction from most non-Goths, and some Goths too, and visiting graveyards for reasons other than visiting a specific grave or for a funeral seems alien to a lot of non-Goths, and quite normal to a lot of Goths. I had to get back to working, and so didn't have time to explain to my co-worker exactly what I find appealing - I just said that I liked the peace and quiet, and I didn't have time to take a bus out to the park.

Snowy graves at Chapel Yard Cemetery, Inverness. Phone-cam photo by me.

The full answer is a bit more complicated. 

It is mainly because I do indeed find graveyards peaceful and quiet. Unlike public parks, they get very few visitors. Usually, I am the only person there, and I am unlikely to be disturbed, which gives me time to be alone with my thoughts and away from the rest of the living.  I guess the fact that most people find them morbid, if not outright creepy, is one of the reasons that they remain a place of solitude. While I am an outgoing person, extended social interaction does tire me, and I need time alone to recuperate. Visiting a graveyard does not quite guarantee me brief isolation, but it is most usually solitary enough - some are more frequently visited than others, and I've been to a couple with paths straight through them and thus people using them as thoroughfares, but the Chapel Yard cemetery at the end of Academy Street in Inverness is at least not used as a short-cut, even if it is bordered by two busy and converging roads. Actually, considering its situation, it is surprisingly quiet, something which I attribute to the high walls surrounding it and the numerous trees, shrubs and hedges.

More snowy graves, photographed by HouseCat

Graveyards often have quite interesting masonry and sculpture - old mausoleums, grave-stones and markers, old walls, etc. I like these on aesthetic grounds, but they also serve as a reminder to put things in perspective: as Hippocrates said, "Life is short, art is long" - not just that the physical artefacts of human crafts outlive their makers, or that our deeds can outlive us, but that life is short and that learning any skill, or practising any art, or really doing anything well, is time-consuming and it is important to manage your time wisely - and that includes taking a break from things so that when you go back to them you are more productive. Yes, the graves are very much a reminder of human mortality, but rather than depressing me, this inspires me and reminds me to always live life like I will be struck down by lightning or traffic the next day; I try to make the most of things, avoid leaving things unsaid, and do my best to fill each day with experiences and productive activities.

Interior of mausoleum, note extinguished torch
carving on the far wall. Photo by the HouseCat

Death does not depress or frighten me; yes I wish to accomplish certain things before I am gone, but the fact that I will be gone does not upset me, and never really has. I don't believe in an afterlife, and my view on reincarnation is more that my soul will be recycled, and maybe the next thing I am made into will retain little flashes of me-ness, the way recycled paper sometimes has little bits of still-legible text or flashes of colour, but mostly that which makes me the person I am now will cease to be. These things have never scared me; it just seems logical that all things are born, die, and get recycled one way or another, even if its just the physical recycling of decomposition. Maybe this is why I am attracted to the Gothic; death does not terrify me, not even the prospect of my own demise, instead it just seems like another part of life, and therefore I am not put off the macabre, and if anything just as curious about it as I am anything else. Suffering frightens me, but not dying; being dead seems to mostly be awful for those left grieving in the absence of the deceased, and be merely oblivion for the one who has died. As such, reminders of death, such as graveyards and skulls, don't upset or make me miserable.

Details of the graveyard, with interesting carvings.
Photo by The Housecat, collage made in PicMonkey

Graveyards are also often rare green spaces in urban areas; especially those that do not come with much parkland, or come with parkland that is just flat grass for sports with little in the way of trees and shrubs. I often see a wide variety of birds, and sometimes animals - I often spot hedgehogs and squirrels in graveyards. Sitting on a bench and observing, or going for a quiet stroll, is one way I can get in my dose of "nature time" - something I need to keep myself grounded. For places associated with death, they are usually teeming with life.

I go to graveyards to find solitude, peace, perspective and life, and usually I find it in those places, even if they are places of death for others. 

Craig Dunain Cemetery

Yesterday I walked up out of the city up to the old Craig Dunain Hospital buildings, being guided by some friends. Craig Dunain Hospital initially opened in Victorian times as Inverness District Lunatic Asylum, and remained a psychiatric hospital right into the '90s when they transferred all of that to the New Craigs buildings just down the road. Craig Dunain hospital has a long, and fairly well documented history. I have lost several hours to trawling the web and reading about it, and looking at photographs of the hospital at different points in its history. Anyone who has an interest in Victorian 'Lunatic Asylums' should look it up, because its history is also one of the transition from the Victorian style institutions (of which Craig Dunain was apparently relatively progressive, especially in the promotion of eating for health and the use of time in the parkland and gardens surrounding for its therapeutic qualities - something that is once again being seen as valuable to mental health recovery) to modern mental healthcare, as the site was used until relatively recently, and was more shifted along the road to newer buildings than really closed. 

Photographed through the wire fence. Photo by Housecat

I have been up to that part of the city before, but not all the way to to the old hospital complex, and I was amazed by how huge it was, and what a beautiful old building it had initially been before time, neglect and several fires took their toll. Having seen old photographs of the interior, it apparently initially had quite lovely Victorian details, some of which were in a Gothic Revival style. Having looked at more recent photographs by an urban explorer at ::this:: page, it looked like some of the interior survived until 2003, but having been heavily altered over the years. Now it looks like it was entirely gutted, presumably by the fires, and parts of the roofs have collapsed, and looking from the outside through some windows, it looks like there's nothing left of the interior and it's just a shell. Either way, it now gives me the creeps, despite being the kind of architecture I quite like - maybe it's just all the fire-damage and scaffold reinforcements that tell me it's now an obviously dangerous and unstable ruin, or maybe it's the local stories about the place, some of which are quite grim, or maybe it's because other people have told me they've been in it and it's definitely haunted by some rather restless spirits, but it certainly had a sense of great foreboding. I stayed at the roadside, outside the perimeter fence - and even that felt too close sometimes.

As the photographs show, it was a cold, frosted and snowy day, with lots of icy paths for me to slip on, and a pale and wan sun. It was, at least, not too cloudy a day, just one where the sun never rose particularly high, and rapidly dipped low again behind the hill. There was settled snow on exposed surfaces, but underneath the tree cover, it was just cold, with a slight mist or low cloud. 

Snowy Ground. Photograph by Housecat

Beyond it, it what was once part of the hospital's parkland, beyond some woodland, is a small cemetery. Beside it is a plaque explaining a bit about its history, and a proper military memorial for one person interred within the cemetery who earned the Victoria Cross in Victorian times, but was left severely injured and suffering from what would probably be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder today, and ended up institutionalised in the old Craig Dunain and buried somewhere within the graveyard in a pauper's grave. 

Looking over the graveyard wall. Photo by Housecat

There only appear to be two grave-markers still standing in the graveyard itself, but there's mossy mounds that look like broken graves rather than tree stumps, and my friend assures me that there used to be more grave markers. According to a quote on the plaque from when the cemetery was new, it was built "for the interment of patients not removed by their friends" - it seems so sad that there were enough people who died at that hospital and were not collected for burial by friends and family, and instead were interred here. There seems to have only ever been a handful of stone markers - indicating that some at leat did not have pauper's graves, as stone memorials have always been expensive - but I guess the majority had simple wooden crosses that have long since rotted away. Apparently much was done to make the graveyard a pretty floral garden with nice trees, but the trees rapidly over-took the garden, especially as much of the trees are yew, and yew kills whatever is beneath it. There are two enclosures, one with an external gate, that I presume was the initial cemetery, and another of equal size beside it, which I presume was an extension, and is accessed internally. The cemetery was closed in 1895, when they ran out of space. I don't know what happened to people who died at Craig Dunain after 1895.  

A remaining marker, a stone cross. Photo by HouseCat

Nearby in the woods are three small crosses, lanterns and floral tributes that seem to be from the last year or two, and perhaps are markers for scattered ashes, or as there is a pet cemetery for the pets of patients and residents of Craig Dunain, and of what appeared to be 'ward' pets, maybe the crosses mark further pet burials. I didn't take any photographs of the crosses, or of the pet cemetery. 

The dividing wall between the two enclosures.

It seems sad to me that these people seemed almost forgotten at the time of their deaths, at least by people outside of the hospital, and that now there is little to remember them by except for the wall and some trees - only two markers, most graves without anything recording the names of those buried within. It is not that they are from so long ago that time has forgotten them - there are plenty of markers in the cemeteries within the city that still have names from before 1864 when the hospital was first opened. I have read that in times past, families would basically abandon relatives deemed insane, and carry on as if they had never existed, bound by the stigma around mental illness and behaviours then not socially acceptable. I wish someone would go through the old hospital records, because there must have been some record, even if it was just for the expense of hiring someone to dig a grave, and to place a plaque by the cemetery listing all those buried within, so that they don't remain forgotten. 

I apologise for photo quality; they were taken on my smartphone rather than my proper camera. Photographs edited in a combination of GIMP, which I am just learning to use, and PicMonkey. 

Snow, Executions, Graveyards and Cats

Well isn't that a strange list of things!

Firstly, it snowed. I know it is mid-March, and theoretically Spring began on March 1st (for those places that use other dates than the equinoxes and solstices as seasonal starts) but it is once again terribly cold and snowy. We have had patches of warmer, brighter weather, but it seems to have plunged once again into winter. 

Snow and trees. Photograph by me.

This is a photo I took in local woodland. It was around 09:20 (I wasn't working at that point, my shift was later) in the morning, and the sun was quite low in the sky soon. Snow had blanketed everything in powdery whiteness, and the branches glittered brightly in the sun. The sky was blue, with more snow-clouds blowing in. I spent some time walking around the woods with the camera, and took a few other pictures, but this one was the best.

I caught a bus shortly after this and went into the city. I was surprised that it was so snowy in the city itself, as it is usually slightly warmer than the surrounding countryside, and often if it is snowing out on the hills, it is only raining in the city. Instead, I found great swirling flurries of snow. I wandered into the graveyard on Church St. to take photos, as I know it to always be very pretty, and the church beside it is a lovely Gothic Revival example (the church in it being much older).

Old High Church Graveyard

The sky, as you can see, had begun to cloud over once again, as more snow was falling and even more snow heading our way. I try not to photograph individual graves too legibly, but some were included as I tried to get a photograph of the overall scene. I will remember to photograph from the opposite angle in future, where I only get the backs of the stones. They are not (by any means) recent graves, and I hope I cause no offence to the families of those interred there. I tried very hard to photograph a rather fluffed-up crow that was scooting between the stones, and at one point perched on top of an urn-shaped grave stone, but he was too flighty (probably a result of the cold). 

Graveyard in the snow.

While I was there, I noticed that the visitor's board - the educational one with a brief history of the church and grounds - was buried under snow, so I cleared it off. Having cleared it off, I glanced over it, thinking I had read it all before, but then realised I hadn't, and that the parts missed included a rather gruesome episode in the Church's history. After the Battle of Culloden, Jacobite prisoners were kept there temporarily, and executed in the graveyard. There were, and are, two stones in the graveyard, one with a groove in the top that was used as a musket rest, and one 9 yards directly in front of it, facing the river, where the prisoner to be executed was placed. I think quite a few died there. Apparently the executioner missed once, and there is dent in the wall of the house opposite. Reading about it sent chills down my spine, and it seemed quite eerie that the churchyard that is now peaceful and pretty and full of wildlife and nice statuary was once witness to such bloodshed. While graveyards are often associated with death, it is rare for people to have actually died in them. 

I had to go home at this point, as I had to get ready for my shift at work, but the weather started improving again. A lot of the snow melted in the afternoon. 

There's a cat perched on me. 

On a lighter note, on the way home to change for work, this friendly cat from a neighbour's house came over to see me. She likes clambering on me, and as you can see in the photograph, especially likes sitting on my shoulders. She's a very, very cute little kitty. And yes, I am terrible at taking selfies. I often get to play with her on my way too and from the bus, and once she refused to get off my shoulders, and I wondered if she was hoping to sneak onto the bus with me... Eventually she climbed onto a fence next me and was content to be petted while sitting up there. 

Yesterday Was Wonderful

And by 'Yesterday', I mean Saturday, 9th of March, not the past.

The past certainly had wonders, but wonderful is not how I would describe a lot of it.

Yesterday afternoon Raven and I went off to Inverness to meet up with a mutual friend from the Goth community who is involved with the starting of a Pagan moot in Inverness. He happens to know another person whom I know from another Pagan moot, which I didn't know - I am continually surprised at how interconnected the local alternative scene is! I am not going to reveal the location of the moot or identities of its members, because Paganism is still a religion that can get you all sorts of hassle for. There are actually quite a few Pagans in the Highlands, something I presume may come from both a connection to the area's pre-Christian past and the presence of groups like the Findhorn Foundation that are decidedly alternative. Before I came her I was warned that it was a place characterised by less-than-tolerant forms of Christianity, but I have not come across this. 

Wandering through snow.
Photograph by Chance Photography

Anyway, Raven and I went to the moot, which was very interesting in terms of discussion. Various topics were raised, including how we felt in urban vs. rural environments, including my exercises in connecting with cities, with their geography as I would with a forest or rocky place. We talked about foraging and local wild food, especially mushrooms. A Polish attendee talked about mushroom-gathering in Poland, where it is more common in than in Scotland. I talked about how my grandmother foraged during Rationing for things like blackberries and crab-apples and about her recipes for various preserves passed to me via my father. We discussed Romanticism and the birth of Neo-Paganism. We got onto our personal experiences with birds. It was all very interesting, and I'm glad to have the time for informal and social discussion amongst the local Neo-Pagan community, not necessarily on strictly Pagan topics. 

After that Raven and I went wandering around second-hand shops, and then went to the Victorian market, where I bumped into two people I know. One was another mutual friend of Raven and I - and of the previous mutual friend we'd met before - and the other was Goth woman I had enthusiastically met by chance in the mall a long time before, exchanged contact details, and then lost touch with entirely. It is nice to have met her again, as we have a lot of commonalities. I had no idea that this second mutual friend knew her! It was also another example of how inter-connected the local alternative community is. Once you get into it, you find that everyone knows everyone else. 

Raven and I then went to a coffee shop for a chat and a warm drink and some quality time as the two of us. It is nice being broadly social, but it is very very nice to have time between the two of us.

I was cold and tetchy.
Photograph by Chance Photography

After that we went home and got changed as we had a party to attend in the evening. I had worn my red wig during the day partly out of self-consciousness about how much my black dye had faded and my roots were showing. I re-dyed it black, and put it in my hair for the recommended 45 minutes, but the roots, while a bit darker, are still visibly brown in relation to the rest, which is even blacker than before. All I did to my outfit was add a lace cloak and choker, and put my dragon ear-cuff on. I love how it looks like a dragon is whispering in my ear. Raven got his frills on for a change, and looked decidedly sexy in them. 

The party was good fun, and we met some new friends, and had a good laugh with existing friends, and generally a good time was had by all. I finally crawled into bed around 3am, and woke up with smudged make-up over my face because I forgot to take my eye-makeup off before going to bed. 

The photographs were taken today, in the snow in the meadow. It is nearing mid-march and it has been snowing again here! Many thanks to Raven for taking them. 

Snowy Weekend In Aviemore

❅ I Love Snow ❅

Last weekend I went South to Aviemore, to play in the snow and watch the dog sled racing, and, of course, look at the amazing Cairngorms scenery. 

The Housecat in the snow, looking at pines.
Photograph by Chance Photography

The weather was good, and bright, but not warm enough to melt the snow. The snow was, oddly, deeper than it is in our more Northerly home, and I took the opportunity to lob snowballs at Raven...  We arrived relatively early, hopped on a bus up the mountain, and then Raven led me on a walk around the race course so he could take photographs of the dogs and racing. I watched, and also looked around at the gorgeous, gorgeous scenery. 

We walked high up into the mountains, looking down over Loch Mhùrlaig through the trees. One day I am going to have to walk around Loch Mhùrlaig and take some photographs, because it is truly beautiful, and it did not matter where I stood, the view was incredible. The light, which came through shifting clouds, would suddenly illuminate patches of forest or mountain, or glisten over the snowy Cairngorm mountains. I kept trying to get Raven to take photos of the view, but he was more interested in sleds drifting around corners and dogs running side-by-side. 

There were plenty of small burns that ran through the snow and frozen greenery, some frozen over, and some too fast-flowing to freeze. What was really spectacular was looking at the frozen waterfalls turned into cascades of needle-like icicles. I really wish I'd had my camera with me to photograph some of those. It was also interesting to see the frozen upland ponds and bogs, with reeds and grasses frozen in accumulated frost and ice. 

The bus back down the mountain was packed to capacity with sledding fans, skiers and snow-boarders, and it was standing room only. I rode the bus standing all the way down the mountain road, "surfing". I'm not keen on crowded spaces, but there was a good sense of camaraderie amongst the snow-sports people. 

Altogether, I had a good time, and the next time I go, I will take more landscape photographs. 

Happy Solstice!

Squinty

❅❅❖❅❅

Happy Winter Solstice everyone! 

Enjoy yourselves!

❅❅❖❅❅ 

Have a very blessed Solstice, fellow Pagans, and Atheists can treat the Solstice as a secular holiday; it is the shortest day of the year and the days will get longer afterwards and that is scientific fact. If you neither see it as a good secular holiday or celebrate a different midwinter holiday, have a good day anyway. 

I shall leave you with some pictures taken in 2010 of me being a happy Goth in the snow. My Dad took these. I was having a lot of fun playing in the woods, throwing snowballs at my Dad, having snowballs thrown at me at by my Dad. I was generally being a daft and silly and enjoying myself. 

Enjoying The Snow

Snow is my favourite sort of weather; it is both cold and pretty. I am the sort of person to build elaborate snow sculptures and make snow-angels and have snowball fights and go sledding.

I used to have dyed black hair with red and white clip-in streaks (a bit babybat, I know). I think my grandma knitted the black hat with snowflakes pattern. The boots I was wearing that day were studded with three sets of buckles and biker-styled, and really, really, comfortable. Sadly they were cheap and did not last. The trousers were black velvet, really, really, really warm and got worn to death. I still have the leather coat, gloves, and neck-kerchief. 

I'd Just Been Snowballed

This picture was taken back in Oxfordshire, England. Scotland gets much more snow than England, but we had particularly good snow that year. I miss winter back down South, and celebrating Christmas with my Dad, and playing in the woods being a big kid, especially with our friends.

❅

❅❅❖❅❅

Happy Winter Solstice!!

❅❅❖❅❅

❅