A quick list of other fabulous resources courtesy of the Oxford Department of Continuing Education. The full festive calendar is available all year round.
- December Festive Calendar – as well as the posts that I’ve highlighted already here are some more fabulous sites from this year’s selection:
- Great Barrier Reef – http://attenboroughsreef.com/
- Pieter Bruegel the elder – https://www.bruegel2018.at/en/ Exhibition now closed but a great resource.
- 20th Century Literature – British Library – https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature Excellent article on ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’,by Jean Rhys, a prequel and reply to Jane Eyre, written in the 1960s.
- Ashmolean Online Collection – http://collections.ashmolean.org/collection/about-the-online-collection
- Elizabeth Twining – botanical illustrations: https://www.c82.net/twining/about/

There is debate about whether the decade ends at the end of 2019 or in a year’s time. Whatever definition it is certain that we are now at the start of the twenties. It’s that time of year when people make and then break resolutions and resolve to eat less, exercise more, be more creative and . . . well you get the idea.
For the last 5 years my husband and I have written a set of affirmations that define our marriage and our plans for the year ahead. We tend to do these around our wedding anniversary in September rather than the new year. The cold dark miserable days of late December and early January are not conducive to sensible planning. For me they either instill a desire to hibernate or to be wildly over optimistic and make plans that are never going to be even partially achieved. I am a great fan of the author Marian Keyes and she has posted a lovely message on Instagram this morning – ‘We can’t all be Beyonce‘. It really struck a chord for me.
One bit of news from the Christmas Holiday – as well as ‘kitten sitting’ (see photo above) I did some dyeing with red cabbage. I’m not sure that boiling up two whole cabbages on Christmas Day would be ideal for most people, but the results were lovely and I really enjoyed it! More patterns, more dyed yarn and more musings in the coming Twenties. See ya there. L 🙂