{"id":1344,"date":"2013-12-14T16:09:50","date_gmt":"2013-12-14T17:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/?p=1344"},"modified":"2013-12-14T16:09:50","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T17:09:50","slug":"signs-and-portents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/?p=1344","title":{"rendered":"Signs and portents?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"IMG_7379x_667\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It has been a very mild week!\u00a0 There is even a snowdrop blooming in the garden!\u00a0 Gone are the snow and the rain.\u00a0 I was out in the garden a couple of days ago, sorting out Christmas lights.\u00a0\u00a0 I looked down, and there on my arm was a butterfly, sitting there quietly as I moved wires about and pegged down my favourite robin light.\u00a0 What was a butterfly doing in my garden at this time of year?\u00a0\u00a0 And he was not for moving! \u00a0 I climbed over the fence to show it to my neightbour and he did not move.\u00a0\u00a0 I went into the house to show it to my wife, and he did not move.\u00a0\u00a0 I messed about taking his picture with my mobile phone, and he did not move.\u00a0 I went inside to get my big camera and as I went back into the garden he decided he had had enough and off he flew.<\/p>\n

In a week when “selfie” pictures are in the news here is a selfie picture of my arm, with the tortoiseshell butterfly;\u00a0 and for good measure another selfie picture of me taken with my big camera for a bit of nonsense.<\/p>\n

\"butterfly1000\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_7045\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As I was packing up to go inside I notced two vapour trails from aeroplanes in the sky above the setting sun.\u00a0 They had crossed over and were forming a St Andrew’s Cross against the pale blue sky.\u00a0 Not a great picture I know, but well worth recording with the mobile phone again.<\/p>\n

\"stACross_1000\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Inevitably I thought of the story of King <\/span>Aengus <\/span> MacFergus, King of the Picts and his victory over King Athelstane of the Northumbrians at the battle of Athelstaneford, near Haddington.\u00a0 The story goes that he had a vision of St Andrew in the night and during the battle, <\/span><\/span> Aengus saw a cross of white clouds against a blue sky – hence the Saltire which has been the emblem of Scotland since then. \u00a0 In these days in the run-up to the Independence Referendum, was this another sign in the sky?<\/p>\n

The ancients took great interest in signs and their interpretation.\u00a0 What would they make of a snowdrop in December, a winter butterfly and a cross in the sky, I wonder?<\/p>\n

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It has been a very mild week!\u00a0 There is even a snowdrop blooming in the garden!\u00a0 Gone are the snow and the rain.\u00a0 I was out in the garden a couple of days ago, sorting out Christmas lights.\u00a0\u00a0 I looked down, and there on my arm was a butterfly, sitting there quietly as I moved…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crudencountry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1344"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1356,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1344\/revisions\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}