“The urn that covereth me shall bring forth a god.”
— Fulvius
“Whether his light reveals an easy path or a steep climb, whether the pilgrimage involves energetic activity or the more arduous, secret work of interior surrender, we want to be able to say with the Magi: We saw, and we came.”
— Father Philip Nolan
My annual placeholder for the normal nonsense that ensues with a little downtime. What’s on the menu is mostly travel and football (soccer). My creative output was so low in 2025. It would be easy to blame all the work travel, but I think there are other factors.
January
Framed original artwork from Margot Weemaes
March
Re-platformed www.limestoneroof.com and www.playmobil365.com
April
AOE Video
Atari Box #2 – Walt Disney World Resort® and Theme Park Transportation
May
Bermuda stamps
Atari Box #3 – Brompton Adventure: Mystery of Tucker’s Cross
July
Estes Screamin’ Mimi video
August
TWA Hotel at JFK
November
G119 MacGregor
December
Playmobil photos
I read ‘fin de siècle of twee’ in an article and had to ask GROK what it meant. It was used in a very snarky “article” about the Brompton bicycle.
More proof that Richard Mabey is Tom Bombadil. This is from The Accidental Garden:
“And so, in those teasing days of March when the light seems to be touched with pollen, I use my stick to part the quilt and see what’s coming up. It’s a test of my eyesight and knowledge of vegetative growth, but also a slightly impatient scan for promises, as these diminutive sprouts navigate their way towards the spring. I can’t always tell what they are. They’re only centimetres across and a long way from my eyes. But I can make out trefoils of red clover, feathery sprays of yarrow, blades of ribwort plantain, thin needles of wild daffodils in their dedicated patch. As for the cowslips, their flat grey-green rosettes are everywhere, but as I lift their leaves I can see unidentifiable shoots lurking at the edges of the shade they cast. Everything is striving towards its share of the light, finding minuscule gaps between the larger leaves, making small diversions into the horizontal when free passage lies that way.”
(1) The Monstrous 18 litre V8 Ford GAA: The Biggest Petrol V8 Ever Built That Powered The Sherman Tank
(2) A quote from “A Far-Off Gleam of the Gospel” by Colin Gunton:
“Tolkien’s strength here is to have seen something of the importance of the person. To fall into the power of the evil one is to be depersonalized. Nowhere is this better illustrated than by the portrait of the herald of Sauron who rides to meet the army of Gondor as it waits apparently foolhardily at the gates of Mordor. ‘The Lieutenant of the Tower of Baradur he was, and his name is remembered in no tale; for he himself had forgotten it, and he said: ‘I am the mouth of Sauron.'”
“To serve the power of evil is to lose one’s name, that which we gain by virtue of our loving relationship with others; it is to enter a slavery in which our very identity is taken away. Similarly, wherever the Dark Lord’s influence is felt, human relations are in danger. His power is to be found even among his foes, where it causes friends to fall out and quarrel, but, more notably, in the fact that his own servants fight each other savagely. Evil alienates and destroys. It is against the depersonalizing of Middle-earth with its accompanying slavery, pollution and lawlessness that the titanic battle takes place.”
(2a) A quote from The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien:
“At its head there rode a tall and evil shape, mounted upon a black horse, if horse it was; for it was huge and hideous, and its face was a frightful mask, more like a skull than a living head, and in the sockets of its eyes and in its nostrils there burned a flame. The rider was robed all in black, and black was his lofty helm; yet this was no Ringwraith but a living man. The Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dûr he was, and his name is remembered in no tale; for he himself had forgotten it, and he said: ‘I am the Mouth of Sauron.’ But it is told that he was a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Númenóreans; for they established their dwellings in Middle-earth during the years of Sauron’s domination, and they war-shipped him, being enamoured of evil knowledge. And he entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again, and because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord’s favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of the mind of Sauron; and he was more cruel than any orc.”
(3) Happiness Isn’t “Inbox Zero” (The Imaginative Conservative)
(4) For Cardinals in Consistory This Week: Mending Wall (The Catholic Thing)