{"id":2036,"date":"2011-01-03T17:08:46","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T16:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/?p=2036"},"modified":"2011-01-03T17:10:09","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T16:10:09","slug":"the-long-and-winding-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/2011\/01\/03\/the-long-and-winding-road\/","title":{"rendered":"The long and winding road"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"avatar\" src=\"http:\/\/ravenfamily.org\/sam\/avatars\/stitchhalfgood.jpg\" alt=\"avatar\" title=\"Ups and downs\">I spent Christmas and New Year with <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/froodburbles\">Frood<\/a> and my parents \u00e2\u20ac\u201d my brother and his girlfriend Candice joined us for New Year. Like last year, my parents had rented a place somewhere far away from work: this year it was on the south shore of Loch Tay, at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bracken-lodges.com\/\">Bracken Lodges<\/a>, a little way along from Acharn. It was a beautiful setting, informed by mountains and water and, for most of it, thick drifts of snow and sheets of ice. I&#8217;ve brought back more than 200 photographs, and it&#8217;s going to take me some time to go through them all and choose the best ones.<\/p>\n<p>This is one of my favourites so far:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ravenbait\/5300217153\/\" title=\"Dreaming of a white Christmas by Ravenbait, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5243\/5300217153_21839b4be2.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Dreaming of a white Christmas\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>2010 has been an interesting year, to use the word in the context that Pratchett used it in, if I recall correctly, <i>Small Gods<\/i>. It has gone incredibly quickly \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it seems to be no time at all since we were sitting in the lodge at Erigmore for last year&#8217;s Christmas \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and in some ways it has been one of the longest years ever. It has certainly had its ups and downs and it&#8217;s one I think I shall chalk up to experience rather than relishing in fond memory.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d like to think that 2011 will see an upward rather than a downward trend. For the time being I am going to consider that in life&#8217;s game of <i>Play Your Cards Right<\/i> 2010 is what happened when Mr Forsyth turned over the four of spades.<\/p>\n<p>Onwards and upwards.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ravenbait\/5320512304\/\" title=\"The long and winding road by Ravenbait, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5169\/5320512304_71bbf00f3e.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"The long and winding road\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spent Christmas and New Year with Frood and my parents \u00e2\u20ac\u201d my brother and his girlfriend Candice joined us for New Year. Like last year, my parents had rented a place somewhere far away from work: this year it was on the south shore of Loch Tay, at Bracken Lodges, a little way along [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,40],"tags":[8,88,156,102,103],"class_list":["post-2036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","category-rambling","tag-distraction","tag-photos","tag-rambling","tag-scotland","tag-winter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The long and winding road ~ Singularity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/2011\/01\/03\/the-long-and-winding-road\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The long and winding road ~ Singularity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I spent Christmas and New Year with Frood and my parents \u00e2\u20ac\u201d my brother and his girlfriend Candice joined us for New Year. 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