The Day before Christmas

The North wind doth blow and we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?
He'll sit in a barn and keep himself warm
and hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

Well a simple nursery rhyme about the robin is something that went through my head this morning, though the Darkling Thrush by Hardy would seem more appropiate to the wet, windy and cold weather... I just love Hardy's mournful gloom his books a great favourite when I was younger.

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

    The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

    Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

    Had sought their household fires...

The rest of the verses are in the link above.

But enough of the weather, and those poor birds at this time of the year, I have fed them, and there is as yet still no snow. But is it not appropiate for Xmas Eve, that we do gather by the fire.  Yesterday a visit to the dentist, all clear thank goodness, the sound of the drill in another room made my stomach turn over!
The other day Weaver of Grass (Pat) had problems with which charity to give to. I am not sure on this, I suggested the 'White Helmets' of Syria who do a much needed job of rescuing the wounded from the buildings that have been bombed.  A volunteer group of Syrian people seemed right.
But it made me remember last weekend when we were watching Peter Pan, and my daughter seemed very knowledgeable on the story of J.M. Barrie, she revealed that actually she had the Wiki entry on her phone.  Well said I, thank goodness I gave a donation the other week to Wikipedia, it is a non-profit organisation and educates people all round the world. 
It is difficult to choose a charity at Xmas, we are beset on all sides for pleas for money.  Home charity is the 'Salvation Army' or 'Shelter' of course for taking the homeless of the street but do they do it all the year.
Medecins Sans Frontieres is of course another one, as is the Red Cross or Save The Children.  Whatever their are plenty out there and don't get me started on animal charities, pictures of ill abused animals are there to set your heart off, as are of course the terrible pictures of children suffering.  Should we feel guilt? the answer is of course yes, but perhaps also we should be nagging our governments as well, after all they have the biggest pots of money.