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"I thought I saw a swallow land, upon my hand, on summer day" - Roy Harper

For the gardener, this is the peak of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, and weeks following Midsummer Day are a time of quietness, of flower festivals, of fragrant old roses around mildewed old church doors and of wandering among indecipherable gravestones and of coming hollyhocks and of lemon balm and of long, long ago memories, but always of "history is now, and England".

Would you travel across the land, in the hour of the summer solstice? 

- from Ancient Dream, by Aeolian Songspell

The veil is thin now.

A time for the half-remembered inner pagan to re-emerge, dancing widdershins in the pre-dawn dew around the celebrity stones, or the authentic stones, or wherever one finds oneself this solstice-time. 

T.S. Eliot's legacy remains profound and his poetry moves me deeply.

In 2016 I had the privilege of visiting his final resting place, East Coker.

I read or listen to the peerless Little Gidding often, and almost every line entrances, as if peering through a veil at something once known, but half-forgotten because not looked-for.

In the 1840s Henry David Thoreau swapped his busy schedule in Concord, Massachusetts, for a wooden hut he built himself near Walden Pond. We had the privilege to visit Walden in July 2012; it exceeded expectations in its tranquility and beauty - and the swim in the pond itself was unforgettable.

Writing in the winter of 1843, shortly after Margaret Fuller’s mentorship made him a writer, the twenty-five-year-old Thoreau awakened to a snow-covered wonderland and marvelled at the splendour of a world reborn.

Celebrating the TV of my youth...

Please see below selected Europe-related change from 2015 and earlier, For change from 2016 onwards, please see What's Changing? - Economics.

December 2015

• Finland's government is drawing up plans to give every one of its citizens a basic income of 800 euros a month and scrap benefits altogether. A poll commissioned by the agency planning the proposal, the Finnish Social Insurance Institute, showed 69% supported the basic income plan.