Monday 8th November

Every winter
When the great sun has turned his face away,
The earth goes down into a vale of grief,
And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,
Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay -
The leaps in spring to his returning kisses. (Charles Kingsley)

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire; it is the time for home. (Edith Sitwell)

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There is a spot ‘mid barren hills,
Where winter howls, and driving rain;
But, if the dreary tempest chills,
There is a light that warms again.

The house is old, the trees are bare,
Moonless above bends twilight’s dome;
But what on earth is half so dear -
So longed for - as the hearth of home?

The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o’ergrown,
I love them - how I love them all!

A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide;
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains, circling every side.

A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;
And, deepening still the dream-like charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere. (Emily Bronte)

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This video has been made available on YouTube by Masami Takeuchi who is featured playing the Londonderry Air. The theremin, an electronic instrument, was invented by Leon Theremin who patented it in 1928. The sound it produces is heard regularly on television, for it’s a theremin which plays the theme tune of “Midsomer Murders.”