the ideal Christmas movie

[incandescens]

Well, Sweeney Todd looks as if it will be with us faster than I expected. But should I really suggest that the family go and see it as a Boxing Day movie?

The day was fairly good. Had a contact lens checkup, and while it was good to know that my eyes were otherwise in good health, it was annoying to have to shell out for a new pair of lenses, even if I got them reduced due to paying into regular scheme, etc. Still. I suppose I should be grateful; my eyes are still better than my father's were at my age, and doubtless have further to go.

I plan to go to York tomorrow. It's only half an hour or so by train, and it should be fun. I have no specific plans apart from (a) visit the Minster, (b) meander.

There's a sort of decoration on classical Greek pottery and walls and so on, a painted border known as the Rectilinear Meander. I learned that at school and have never forgotten.

---

A Note

Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;

to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;

to tell pain
from everything it's not;

to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;

and if only once
to stumble upon a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important.

-- by Wislawa Szymborska (translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)