December has been here two weeks already???

Sorry I've neglected the blog a bit. Have moved to another part of town and been settling in and sorting out mails that kept going to the wrong address!

We are having our slice of the rainy winter this week. I sort of luck out since I did my traveling last weekend and can now enjoy the cool rain from inside the dry house. Will have to go out tomorrow, though I think the rain clouds will have left us for the greener pasture east of the Rockies by then.

I'm busy writing articles at the moment, and when I'm not writing I'm trying to catch up with a bunch of reading. Aside from all the books I've been meaning to read since before the local sycamore trees were still leafy, I'm still reading the Book of Mormon and James Talmadge's Jesus the Christ. No! I'm not converting, though my lovely missionary sisters had inscribed messages in the latter before presenting it to me as a parting gift, so I'm sort of compelled to be a good sport and read the thing. Besides, it gives me a good excuse to still meet up with them every now and then, you see. I don't find the church and the dogma very sensible, but the Mormons themselves do intrigue me a bit.

Anyhow, Christmas/Winter Solstice will be here before long, so here's to jump start the holiday season a bit with Elina Garanca's gorgeous rendition of Montsalvatge's arrangement of the Catalan madrigal 'El cant dels ocells' (Song of the Birds). It's the birds' experience of nativity, I think.

“En veure despuntar …… When they saw the rising glow,
El major illuminar ………. of god’s great star,
En la nit mes joiosa; …….. Which floods the earth abright;
Els ocellettes cantant …….. The birds arise in song,
a festejario van, …………… warbling all night long
Amb sa veu melindrosa,…… of joy and glad tidings.

Ocells, veniu, veniu……… Come birds, come,
A festejar l’aurora, …….. And rejoice in the dawn,
I a la millor senyora, ….. And with the great lady;

La garsa, griva i gaig, ….. Magpie, thrush and jay
dieun: la ve lo Maig; ….. Say: ‘May is here’;
respon la cadernera: …. The goldfinch answers:
Tot arbre reverdeix: ….. ‘Every tree revives,
Tota planta floreix ……… Every plant abloom
Com si fos la primavera. .. As if it were spring.”