Very belated Happy New Year’s wishes to my dear readers! I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season and that this new year will be a good one. So many in the world do need hope for safer and better lives. Will that ever change?

One of the New Year traditions, at least in our neighbourhood, is the receipt of new calendars from some of the local realtors. Some feature gorgeous local scenery while others feature exciting spots around the world to attract tourism. I fell in love with one of those latter images, of some standing stones called the megaliths of Callanish. Here is the text:

Its remote location on the Isle of Lewis, in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, means that the megalith of Callanish attracts fewer tourists than its counterpart Stonehenge; however, these standing stones are just as impressive and equally puzzling. Erected around 5,000 years ago, the stones form the shape of a Celtic cross. Some archaeologists suggest the site was used as a lunar observatory while others, of a less scientific bent, prefer the local folklore, which tells of giants petrified for their refusal to convert to Christianity. Perhaps because its origins are undetermined, the Callanish Stones have a mystical quality.

Of course there is much more information online, which I will be studying for as many of you know, I find it a fascinating subject and have only seen Stonehenge and Avebury.

Though I no longer put up wall calendars I do save certain images… this one is a keeper! I could not find the photographer’s name to give due credit.

Long-time blog friend Lucy of Box Elder writes wonderful posts from her home in Brittany. I love her rambling stories and gorgeous photos of her garden and the world she lives in, of forays to explore many interesting towns and historical sites. They touch something deep in me, a love for the ancient, the traces of the past, the weathering actions of time and nature. Maybe it’s because I live in such a young city and province in the New World. Today Lucy wrote about her visit to Château de la Hunaudaye, a medieval fortress that has been restored.

This inspired me to pull out a photo album from May and June 2002, from a trip to Vaasa, Finland. Two artist friends and I had an exhibition of our prints there, in fact called Traces. We spent several days in Vaasa hanging our exhibition, having a meeting with the press, visiting family, printmakers and exploring the city and surrounds. All culminating in the opening of course.

One interesting place we visited was Old Vaasa, at the site of the original city that had burned down, and its ruins of St. Maria Church. Sadly my photographs are not good – here’s a better photo. Like the Château, these ruins had also been restored in part, minus the roof. Lucy lamented how restorations sometimes destroy the character of the original, something I’d agree with from my comparatively limited exposure. Much as I liked these simple church ruins and commend that it was done, it lacked some of that very old, crumbling, decaying quality. It is a quandary indeed, to restore or not and to do it sensitively, to save our history or not.