it's a new dawn but the stars are still bright ~*Starbright*~

Happy New Year! 

um, it's been a while since my last post! life kinda got in the way

but my etsy shop is still open, I'm still making the wee leverets and I'm still around!
and I have some great news to share!

- quite a few months ago, one very cold day - a very special bright little star came into my life!!!

I have been thinking of Wesley every single day, ever since he left on xmas eve 2013 in the arms
Yes I missed him but I felt it was maybe time for another rescue rabbit to come into my life, but I didn't feel the urge to contact any rescues, just yet.

..and so the stars answered my request for me

and a tiny little piece of brightness came into my life last May!
(oops! that long ago? and I haven't told anyone? tut tut!)

but here she is - please welcome ~Starbright~ 
my little blue-eyed princess!!

she was a wee bit shy at first

but soon came out of her shell

and like all rabbits feeling safe in a safe place she has already checked out every inch of my apartment, and em, made some slight improvements 
(oh okay, they can be classed as de-provements, but to a rabbit deconstructing something IS seen as an improvement!)

just small matters like the rearrangement of soft furnishings (and carpet corners ripped to buggery)
slight indents made to bathroom walls, but I'm in the process of constructing a new bathroom so that has been most helpful actually
and the inspection of wallpaper-to-skirting board fixments. They just weren't good enough so she has ripped strips of paper off the wall instead so I can do a better job next time

It's such a blessing to have her! 
she was an unwanted bunny and a lovely lady took her in, in the meantime, and word got around and I got the chance to meet her.
As I approached the run that she was in outside, she came over to me, then stood up on her hindlegs, made a small bark noise and poked her nose thru the wire at me!
Oh WOW!! 
that was it! I was sold on her!
-she had done the choosing- simple as that

and every day since then has been wonderful!

here she is opening a packet of Ikea ryvita biscuits

my hares are still selling, and I'm still making them when I have the time

these are the Drive Safe with Baby Army Hare

and are also available in a beautiful desert cam pattern too! This Army uniform has seen service in Afghanistan. You are not just buying a hare, you are taking in a little bit of history:)

my life has been filled with love! Even the clouds remind me how much love surrounds me!

and on New Year's eve I posted my last etsy sale for 2016!

A wee hare going to England to brighten someone's new year! Yay!

I'm so appreciative that people still take the time to stop by my etsy shop and choose a hare for themselves. Love making them 

Isn't this a very wonderful piece of wood? I came across it in a forest and yes, it HAD to come home with me, haha

Love is always revealing itself to me - clouds, wood, stones, rocks, leaves - all in the shape of hearts

and besides, I knew someone who would appreciate this piece of wood very much:)

I've been flying all over the place this past year! So exciting! and exciting to always come home as well

I love flying RyanAir!

Edinburgh has been stunning as usual! Here is a castle that had been living in one of the main streets in the city centre.

Yeah, a castle was put up in a couple of nights, just to, just to, well - just to look beautiful and make you smile!

It came with bright sparkly lights on it, but I rather preferred the ghost-like snow-maiden appearance instead

when you are happy then reminders about enjoying life flash before you

Where ever you happen to be!

sometimes you are reminded of what's important in the most unusual of places - a lorry carpark 

..and here is that happy recipient of the heart shaped log 

Starbright knows all about appreciation:)

and so do I

~always follow your heart

~and do what you love

life is too short to do otherwise

be happy, appreciate, smile, laugh and love

and have a great 2017!

thank you
oh! someone has had enough?!
xxx

Happy / Merry / Hoppy ~ c Рождеством ~

Happy / Merry / Hoppy 

Wesley and I wish everyone a good one

a good good one

and may the bears be friendly

the racoons polite

and the young hares well behaved 

and this is for my good good friend in the States 

( ~ she knows who she is ~ )

an abundance of  **!! HAPPY !!* 

just for her :)  yay!

Happy Christmas beautiful lady! xxx

and may you bask in the light of love

often and always ♥

okey dokey, personal greetings over

I've got my calendar up already

though my tree is still not yet up

- no time! 

I've been flat out bringing many little leverets into the world and sending them safely on their journeys to adorn xmas trees else where

I treated myself to a calendar from the Hare Preservation Trust

I am their volunteer business development manager (big title huh!) and I run their online shop

I've been doing it for quite a few years now.

I like that the Trust is primarily concerned with changing the law regarding the status of hares in the UK by political policy. This is a nice approach to do things and we work with all sides of hare interests. 

The calendars are all sold out for this year. They sold well, and fast!

I rather like this pic of a hare.

I usually keep my fav pic on display all year round, so maybe I will be fast forwarding to August, in January (most probably!)

I'm not into dates or numbers or week days or stuff like that. I work for myself, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, so every day is the same to me - work, work, work....

*yaaaaaawwwnnn* ..complain.. complain.. complain..

no, not complaining Wesley! just sayin'

I bought Wes a heater the other week. 

A little one that can be kept on all the time.

It's a tube type thingy and gets nice n toasty and Wes has spent every waking minute dozing by it

his toys wanted to get in on the action too

hey! get them away!

heat hoggers!!

infact Wes has adored his heater so much so, that when I was cuddling him the other night I happened to notice that the inside of his ear was all raw and pinky and *burnt* (shameful blush!!)

so I remedied that right away 

- with a kiss for Wesley (kisses Always work!)

- and a little loose sock slipped onto the heater

(the heater does have huge writing saying Do Not Cover, but hey! just look at Wes and his toys!? it's completely covered in my opinion!) hmmmm

the Edinburgh skies have been all pinky too

beautiful December sunsets over the Scottish capital, so good to see

took this one a couple weeks ago, was so breath-taking

and then got a repeat a couple nights later

isn't it just amazing how beautiful the world can be

truly blessed to live on earth

(em, as opposed to the grey dry desolate moon .. perhaps..)

and as the year draws to an end I am more than half way thru War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

I read this book in high school for my English matric. I studied the persona of the Russian male hero in a few of the classics (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky et al). 

I read the book in lightening speed ofcourse as I had a few books to wade thru and dissect and study. I loved them all ofcourse, being a huge fan of things Russian. And War and Peace is a BIG book! 

but now that I'm older, not under exam pressure and can relax and enjoy a read, I am taking my time to savour it.

I get it in my inbox 3 times a week from Daily Lit and when it comes in at 11pm I make myself a lady grey and sit down for a cosy 5 minute read. 

This really is a great way to get thru books you've always wanted to read but never found the time.

I've read a few Chekovs, and the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and a few other bits here and there but just now I am adoring my War and Peace with Andrew Bolkonski, Pierre and Natasha. 

It's good good stuff!

Tolstoy is truly a master story teller and such an insightful man. Now that I have some life experience, as opposed to purely intellectual dissemination, under my belt, I can really appreciate his incredible wisdom and sagacity. 

alrighty, enough high-brow

next on my read list is Conan the Conqueror. So, so excited!! LOVE Conan :) *sigh*

I just have to finish my current books, which in no particular order are - Andy McNab ~ Immediate Action, W.Stanley Moss ~ Ill Met by Moonlight, John Le Carre ~ The Constant Gardener and Douglas Reeman ~ Battlecruiser that I started about oh, about a year ago. 

Hmmm, then again, maybe I will just go straight on to Conan. I do like to eat my dessert first. When I go out to dinner I look at the desserts first :)

anyway, whatever book I pick up next

will be because I surely LOVE it

I have always loved books. 

I love their feel, their contents, their voice, their world, their comfort, their....

so, whatever you do this xmas,

whether with friends or family or familiarity 

make sure you have a good good one

and you're happy 

merry

and if you've had a few, hoppy :)

and to all my Russian readers who've been stopping by ~ спасибо!

the Midnight Sun Vs Tropic of Capricorn

Autumn is here, again, the days are getting colder

and the sun is getting weaker, day by day 

some beautiful crystals catch the brightest rays, as do the eyes on the smallest hare 

nearly every day I am blessed with the sun shining brightly on me as I work at my desk

and that's a good thing, because I have grown to LOVE the sun more and more

when I was tiny I lived in Zambia for 5 years

growing up in the bush just a bit above the Tropic of Capricorn

surrounded by crocs, snakes, antelope, zebra, eles, lizards and every insect imaginable ~ and the insects in Zambia are the size of small antelopes!! I kid you not

and every day I played happily in the scorching sun, as it beat down on me, relentlessly

- but I was a kid - and kids don't really mind the searing heat, nor notice the bright rays,

well, I never seemed to mind. I was as brown as a berry in all my photos and my hair was nearly, well, it wasn't my dark brown now that's for sure. I was gonna say blonde, but I don't do blonde...  ....mmm, it was *sunkissed*

anyway, it's a long way up North, up here in Scotland with her snow and mountains, from the Tropic of Capricorn!

and the sun, whilst very hot in summer ~ if you lie as still as a lizard on a rock ~ just never seems as omnipresent as in the tropics

it's not ofcourse, I think I was being a little wistful?

but after Africa I then did the rest of my growing up in Outback Australia, in the Northern Territory - again, just above the Tropic of Capricorn

in the hot, hot stiflingly humid tropics of tropical Darwin,

and boy oh boy was it hot and humid all year round!! took me a few years to acclimatize unlike the dry heat in Africa 

and then after all that sun I needed a respite so I came back to Scotland to the grey, and clouds, and rain and fog 

and saying something about the sun being over-rated.. blah blah blah...

- and it wasn't just a fog lying on the land here, it was a fog in trying to understand the locals. Now that was hard!! 

I could hardly understand a thing anyone said, they spoke so fast, with such thick broad accents and really weird strange words. They thought I was taking the piss at work, because I kept saying 'excuse me?' every time they spoke to me, as I didn't have a clue what they had just said!

Hmmm what can I say? perhaps I was not as Scottish as I thought I was? Obviously not!

My most Scottishest word had always been 'aye' (yes)

(but i only used to say that when i lived in Australia....)

and if someone here says 'aye right!'  

it does not necessarily mean 'yes, okay' - it is local banter for 'what rubbish/your kidding/get away wi' yersel ya wee....'

anyway, back to the sun!

Wesley loves the sun shining in, and all day long he will follow it around the room, to bask in the warmth

he's a little sun-bug :)

just as well I have South facing windaes.. oops! sorry, I meant windows

(seriously, I do not talk with much of an accent or use the local banter, I promise)

and my delicious cups of Lady Grey tea are kissed by the autumn sun

so pretty!

always makes me think of the midnight sun, this fading winter sun does, sitting low on the horizon, not giving too much warmth in all it's brightness

even my little fountain seems to be doing a better job?

though it is really very beautiful when I go out to feed the squirrel and sparrows and other beasties

there is something rather mesmerizing about the sun at this time of year, that's for sure

the birds get to tuck in to some mixed seed from their Norwegian bird house

hmmm, perhaps it is rather Scandinavian eh? it did come from my sister-in-laws over in Norway

and em, so did their purdy little water dish. 

It's got 2 permanent water drinkers on the side. Often I see blackbirds standing in the centre taking vigorous baths after I've washed all the leaves out and refilled it.

Glad I got it home in one piece, inside my suitcase... the things you drag back home from your holidays eh??!

(and don't even ask me about the huge 1.8m steel-enforced cardboard tunnel I carted back from Norway for Wesley...!) (oh, alrighty, lying about the steel-enforced part, but it is construction material tunnels and I had to get the guy next door to cut it in 2 with his huge professional circular saw, and even then it was still too big to get in my suitcase ha ha!!) (the things I do for my rabbit eh?)(Wes turned his nose up at it infact)(sorted! sarcastic self-effacing adj.)

alrighty then, the sun is still shining, and the little squirrel that I feed every day comes scurrying across the branches to me when I put some nuts and raisins and sunflower seeds down for him (or her).

it is a rather small squirrel - this year's baby infact and the other 2 siblings have not made an appearance for quite some time, so I could be fattening up just the one tiny beastie

- fattening up to get thru the long winter months ahead I mean. Though I do feed the squirrel every day, so by next spring this little mite will be a huge bundle of fat I reckon?

the little squirrels I make are not so fat

still, that's not an issue,

they don't need to fatten up for hibernating as they will be spending their time on your Christmas tree

amongst all the pretty little sparkling winter suns

oh, okay, xmas tree lights then 

- I was only trying to add a bit of sparkle to the image

I've become rather attached to Achilles since I made him, in all his unkemptness, and sort-of innocence

and I really do love Adore as well

she really is a very beautiful little hare

such a gentle appearance

shall have to give her a tough persona with softened edges, to carry that kind of cuteness off then 

so, that's decided then - these 2 hares are mine

I think they are meant for each other infact? what do you think?

she adores him, he does indeed adore her....

... though no-one is saying anything...

hey?! what's this?

put the lights back on!

okay Wesley :) 
perhaps we should be considering a sojourn in the Tropic of Capricorn then?


Midnight Sun Vs Tropic of Capricorn - I think I will have both, thank you!