Distant landscapes and high peaks

Say the word "mountain" and so many people will imagine you are referring to problems, as in making a mountain out of a molehill. Another cohort may think of thick hiking books, ropes and other climbing gear. Or a trusty pair of skis, accompanied by a pair of ski sticks, and a white and shiny piste ready to be negotiated downward. Sure, the mountain can be all these things but it is so much more. Physically, mountains are the result of the thrust of gargantual geological forces that push mounds of rock and stone upwards. Over time, that is, millions of years, these mountains have become overgrown with plants and vegetation, and occupied by smaller and larger animals. Mountins have always been vulnerable to extremes of climate, particularly in winter, thus making the majority of them unsuitable for habitual human dwelling. The man who comes from the mountain is the one regarded as a bit screwy and far away mentally, not quite one of us. The phrase a day in the mountains is synonymous with getting away from it all, all meaning the cares and worries of the pedestrian lowlands. We expect to come back from "the mountains" relaxed, refreshed and all the better for having been closer to the roof of the world. Poetically, mountains are acknowledged in story and song and aesthetically, are very pleasing to the eye. And where do I begin with that one: from the Renaissance onward, very few artists did not have his take on the mountain, while JMW Turner, Caspar David Friedrich and Paul Cezanne expressed their poetic longings in images of distant landscapes and high peaks. And mountains must be acknowledged as a site of danger, with rock and snow avalanches, landslides et al. With so much of the eco-system under attack, let's hope the mountain stays on top.

Welcome 2026

Happy (belated) 2026 to all readers.  I do apologise but a horrible, debilitating bug robbed all my cranial activity for an entire week. With the return to normality, all the horrors of reality are slowly filtering through, the natural and man-made disasters, the wars and the invasions and fatal illnesses - with all this I realise how lucky we all are to live on this secure and prosperous island with only the promise of a spot of bad weather (Storm Goretti?) to unsettle us. That aside, the beautiful wolf moon, which I wrote about two years ago, has been appearing in the sky every night. I remind readers: "In Anglo-Saxon culture, January’s full moon was called the “Moon after Yule”, the ancient winter solstice festival. Also, it was called “wolf moon”. In days of old, when wolves were active in Northern Europe, February was the time for breeding and wolves become very vocal just before this. In addition, wolves are nocturnal animals and are more active at night. In North America and the few areas of Europe where they survive, wolves howl to communicate over long distances. It is their way of letting the pack know where they are and warning intruders to stay away. They actually howl in the direction of the moon, pointing their faces towards the sky, because this upward projection carries the sound further."  Whatever, the winter solstice is passed, the days are growing longer and the green shoots of spring will appear soon, really and truly. In the meantime, here is a stunning image of the recent moon to greet the year with.