That's right, it is the official start of winter to-day. Each year, on this day, my dad was keen to point this out and would announce: 'We are now entering the black hole'! December 21st has the latest sunrise and the earliest sunset, it's the shortest day. (Bright and sunny here in Edmonton with temperatures rising above 0 c. Hardly winter).

The days don't start drawing out again for a few weeks. My father would announce; "We are out of the black hole. Thank goodness"! when the allotted day arrived. (When is that day, anybody know?) In the mean time in darkness there are lights and I am enjoying them sparkling from the trees on Whyte Avenue, tastefully done too. The city has 'gone to town' with lighting, especially around the legislative building. I saw them briefly the other evening on a trip through the city. Hopefully I'll be escorted there one evening before they get switched off so I can appreciate their magic at a leisurely pace.

Here is an uplifting message for those who need one:

While the light of the world is diminishing may your heart and mind be steady and ever bright. And may you 'go on beyond' the ups and downs of daily life and know the, ever present, 'serene luminescence' now before your very eyes; unchanging, undying, uncreated. Permanent.

Note: In my book on plain English I read that it is OK to split infinitives. I think I just did that!

Keep up the meditation folks.

Following a subtle inner prompting, which went something like "you could put more effort into your writing Mugo", I took the plunge and bought a book at Chapters with my gift card. It is called Oxford Guide to Plain English, a compelling read and chock full of easy to digest instructions. Here is a definintion of plain English writing, quoted from the book:

The writing and setting out of essential information in a way that gives a co-operative, motivated person a good chance of understanding it as first reading, and in the same sense that the writer meant it to be understood.

Who hasn't read an official document of some kind and ended up non the wiser? The plea for plain English has been around for a long time. Quoting from the book again:

In the fourteenth century Chaucer had one of his characters demand: