Merry Christmas

Ecards from Waldmark

and a Happy New Year

The Narnia Lamppost is how we refer to this lantern in our garden. Quite a few people have found the photographs I have made of this lamp post in Winter, and have used it on their website or elsewhere, so I thought it opportune to use it ourselves as well, this year.

For our 2006 greeting card I used a picture I had made standing underneath one of the pine trees in our garden looking upwards. There was quite a covering of snow on the branches and needles. Funny thing is, because of the unusual perspective, I had some difficulty later on trying to figure out which side was up in the picture and which was down.

23 December 2005. Around this time of year it's either rain or snow falling out of clouded skies. And how welcome it is! Rain is replenishing the underground reservoirs and raising the groundwater level to supply the roots of trees and shrubs, while snow falls when the ground needs protection against frost. It is an amazingly effective mechanism.

It's stepping into fairyland when the trees are bent double under the load of snow. So with a crackling fire in the stove, candles in the windows and the silence of snow around the house, we uploaded this picture to our Mac account and then used it to send ecards to around Europe. The picture was taken early in 2005, then worked through Photoshop.

Ecards from Rodono

and a happy 2004

23 December 2003 A couple of weeks ago, when John and I were discussing book illustrations, Jolanda was reading in the living room when she noticed an amazingly beautiful spectacle outside. The sun was going down and turning the clouds red, while the moon was going up and throwing a spectacular reflection on the loch.

The text is Dutch for Merry Christmas, the quote is from chapter 8, verse 4 of the Book of Psalms.

We sent this card by email and it still had power even after having been converted into the high pitched noise that nowadays signals electronic mail and internet traffic.