A double-bill today; first, a surfing Santa and his knitted elves at Hawes bridge on Gale Beck.
Surfing Santas and Christmas Toppers in Hawes
Snowflake Balloon
There’s a rather festive snowflake hot air balloon just outside of Malton’s St Michael’s Church.
Winter Sea / Paul Nash (1925–1937)
Paul Nash’s Winter Sea. Painted between 1925 and 1937.
Winterlandschap met Schaatsers en Vogelknip (Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap) / Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565)
Let’s start this Christmas week with a copy of Pieter Bruegel’s Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap.
Hall of the Golden Hue, Hiraizumi / Hasui Kawase (1957)
Merry Winter Solstice 2025! And to mark it off, here’s a lovely woodcut by Hasui Kawase.
Castle Howard in Green
Castle Howard lit up in green as part of their Christmas ‘Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ installation.
It’s a Festive Postbox Topper for Malton!
As we are merely days away from Christmas it seems entirely appropriate to drop some images of a fantastic Santa-themed topper in Malton.
Unlike most of the other toppers from Malton I have posted, this one can be found at the south end of The Shambles, just outside of Cosy Cottage Soap.
‘Three norths’ set to leave England and not return for hundreds of years…
The British Geological Survey has an interesting article on the moving alignment of true, magnetic, and grid north and how it’s about to leave England for the next several hundred years.
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Nunnington Hall’s Christmas Tree Festival
Slingsby Community Primary School’s rather lovely submission to Nunnington Hall’s Christmas Tree Festival. It managed to look even better in person.
Last night on YouTube: BBC Archive
The Lion & Unicorn has an interesting dive into the BBC’s YouTube archive channel.
I’ve featured a few things from that archive, but none of the videos featured in the article. It’s a nice read and covered a similar ground to some thoughts I’ve been having around archive footage and what it means today.