the first new moon of the new year has been and gone

'he said when he first saw the moon this year it was a very keen moon. old-fashioned folk used to take great notice of the first moon of the new year.'  

- kilvert chats to the 'old soldier' (john morgan), 15th january 1872. 

the first new moon of the new year has been and gone. this year a 13 moon year.

horsemouth has been reading leopard II (side by side with his reading of viriconium). he particularly enjoyed yunna moritz's the great russian readership: where has it gone? but could not get on with andrei bitov's passions of a city planner. 

in viriconium he read viriconium knights and strange great sins. 

this pretty much leaves him with just the two earlier novels - the pastel city and a storm of wings, and then he's done (there is no more). 

the pastel city is manifestly not as good as the later stuff. but it does set the scene. 

a strange day yesterday but he was busy(ish). fed the chickens. down to unlock the abbey. his mum went off into town. took the recycling bin down the drive. put some grit on the paths and the drive. mucked out the chicken shed. carried some posts up into the top field. locked up the abbey. locked up the chickens.

on his way down to the abbey in the morning he took a few photos. he has posted some of them up with photos he took on the common a few days ago.