Christmas cartoon countdown – a little ghoulish?
Frosty’s Christmas
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Peter Rabbit & friends wish you a happy holiday season
Happy Holidays!
How better to enter into the spirit of the season than to reminisce about my trip last spring to the land of Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit. For those who missed it earlier this month, here is the post I wrote for the Dec 12th Books We Love Author Blog.
Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other beloved children’s stories, grew up in London, England. Her family spent their summer holidays in the countryside, where she discovered that she loved animals and nature more than cities. The Lake District in England became the place of Beatrix Potter’s heart. Last spring I came to understand why she loved that region when my husband Will and I spent a week in The Lake District. One of our many highlights was a boat ride across Lake Windermere to Wray Castle, which the Potters rented for several family vacations.
Wray Castle – Beatrix Potter’s parents must have had a fair amount of money to be able to rent such a large summer cottage. They were wealthy enough that they scorned working for a living.
Rambling Wray Castle is now a tourist site, its rooms containing an eclectic assortment of displays. Some depict the life of the woman who built the castle, Margaret Dawson, an early feminist. Other rooms show drawings and scientific studies made by Beatrix Potter. There are a large number of playrooms for children, which include replica scenes from Peter Rabbit and her other stories. A friend told me she and her family spent a fun rainy day at Wray Castle letting their children run loose.
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| Will steals cabbages from Mr. McGregor’s garden |
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I join Beatrix, her family and their guests for dinner |
From Wray Castle, Will and I walked the path along Lake Windermere. At a beach we met a friend, who wasn’t shy.
Beatrix Potter studied animal habits meticulously to make her character’s actions realistic. We caught a ferry to the town of Bowness and visited The World of Beatrix Potter museum, which featured dioramas of Beatrix Potter’s stories.
In 1905 Beatrix used income from her books and a small inheritance to buy a farm in The Lake District. Eight years later, at age 47, she married a local solicitor. While she continued to write, her interests shifted to country life. She bred and raised Herdwick sheep, a breed indigenous to the region, and became president of the Herdwick Sheepbreeders’ Association. Some credit her progressive policies and methods for helping to save the breed from extinction.
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| Herdwick sheep are born black and grow lighter with age. |
Beatrix Potter wrote her greatest works before she settled contentedly into the life she was meant to lead. No doubt she was happiest in her later years, but fans of Peter Rabbit and her other charming characters can be glad for her younger days when she struggled to find her place in the world.
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| Beatrix Potter and me in The World of Beatrix Potter |
Happy Holidays
In some ways I like Facebook – in others, not.
Christmas season in Mexico
We biked past this home in Nuevo Vallarta, which was decked out for the season. 
- Our hotel lobby in downtown Puerto Vallarta. Poinsettias are indigenous to Mexico and proliferate in holiday displays.
Will and I spent most of November in Puerto Vallarta and enjoyed the build-up to Christmas.
Christmas Climate Change
Too political for Christmas?
Christmas Group Therapy
Counting down to Christmas, here’s cartoon # 2. Those braving the malls might be needing therapy.
Christmas Elvis
In the spirit of Christmas, a friend sent me some cartoons that I found funny. Here’s one.
Beatrix Potter’s World
In today’s Books We Love author blog, I write about my visit last spring to Beatrix Potter land in England’s Lake District.
Canadian Battlefields of Northern France
On Remembrance Day this year, I reflected on my trip to the Canadian battlefields of northern France in my post on my publisher’s website. Here is the post, for those who missed it.
Yesterday, November 11, marked the 100th anniversary of the formal end of World War 1. The occasion led me to remember my trip to Europe three years ago with my husband Will and our son Matt. We began our tour of Canada’s battlefields with a stop at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in northern France.
From the Vimy visitors’ centre, we walked up to monument, past a section of land that has been forested to prevent erosion. A sign told us that the bumpy terrain was caused by mine explosions during the war. German troops planted the mines when they occupied the strategic ridge from 1914-1917. The explosions went off as Allied forces advanced up the hill. Barbed wire fences and “Keep Out” signs warned that unexploded munitions remain buried under the grass.
Our approach led to an impressive sight. Sculpted of Croatian limestone, the Vimy monument features 20 human figures representing peace and the defeat of militarism.
The names of 11,285 Canadians killed in France whose graves are unknown are inscribed on the memorial’s outside wall. Back down the hill, we stopped at the cemetery for the Canadian soldiers who died at Vimy or on neighbouring battlefields.
Student guides conducted a tour of the preserved trenches and tunnels.
Moved by all we’d seen at Vimy, we drove to the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. Newfoundland didn’t join Canada until 1949 and fought as a separate regiment in WWI.
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| Beaumont-Hamel caribou monument |
On July 1 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the Newfoundlanders left the trenches to storm a ridge occupied by German forces. Most of the soldiers made it less than half way before they were mowed down by German guns and artillery. An Allied explosion set off earlier had warned the Germans of the impending attack. The Newfoundland regiment failed to take the ridge.
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| Plaque in Musee Somme 1916, in the town of Albert, France |
Nearby, in Thiepval, we visited the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, where graves of British Commonwealth and French soldiers represent the joint nature of the 1916 Somme offensive. The British Commonwealth headstones are rectangles made of white stone; the French headstones are grey crosses.
We left France and drove toward Bruges, Belgium, for several days of respite from war. But on the way we stopped at Ypres, the location of several WWI battles that virtually destroyed the city. After the war the city was rebuilt to its former style, attractively we felt.
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| Main square in Ypres |
At the Ypres Memorial to the Dead, people were setting up for the weekend’s ceremony to commemorate the first poison gas attack, which took place in Ypres in April 1915. Lights shining on the stone monument’s list of war dead cast an ominous glow.
Lest We Forget
Today, one day after this year’s special Remembrance Day, I write about my visit to Canada’s WWI battlefields in northern France on the BWL Author BlogSpot.