A merry Christmas to all my readers

 To begin on a cheery note to expunge the sugar-frosted saccharine:

Gruesome enough?  You want more?  OK, here's something I just threw into the Facebook mix:

Carpe fortuna*

The finest perfumes in the land

Will make some noses runny;

The dinner that the hawk has planned

Is bad news for the bunny.

Fortune can be cool or hot,

When there's a chance, just grab it.

Your lucky rabbit's foot was not

So lucky for the rabbit.

* That's Latin for the lucky fish, I think. 

OK, enough grue.  A couple of years back, I offered an insight into Christmas in Australia, one that went to air about 20 years ago, but here's one in verse. If you are from the northern hemisphere, you may understand it better if you look at the link first.

Christmas breakfast 2010

Christmas breakfast

The Christmas morning track,

Has birds that whirl and screech;

It winds around the hill,

And plummets to the beach.

White Christmas doesn't suit us,

But summer Yule is neat,

When we go dressed for summer,

In sunhats and bare feet.

No snow, no sleet no gales,

water dragon

No dreadful raging blizzards —

We wish to wander bushland,

Filled full with birds and lizards.

With water dragons sunning

And goannas shyly hiding,

The butcherbirds in song

And kookaburras gliding.

We dabble in the shallows

And eat and drink our fill

If I could have my druthers,

I think we'd be there still.

Our Christmas skies are blue skies

kookaburra

They're never, ever, grey,

But walking up the bush track

It feels like Christmas day.

The Christmas morning track,

Brings simple things in reach

It winds around the hill,

But my heart's back on the beach.

* * * * * * *

As my favourite Australian carol, one that I quoted in that radio talk, has it:

The north wind is tossing the leaves,

Sydney, 8 am, a few years back

The red dust is over the town;

The sparrows are under the eaves,

And the grass in the paddock is brown.

If you Google the first line, you can find one rather awful version on Youtube.

Afterthought: or if you are lucky, you may hit upon this version, which my good friend, Robin Carroll-Mann found for me. Thanks, Robin!

Merry Christmas all, and if you are tucking into venison, please check its provenance.