In case you didn't get your five colly (or 'calling', but they're actually blackbirds for whom 'colly bird' is a country nickname) birds this morning I have a present in the form of one of my favourite Christmas readings, from Thomas Hardy's novel Under the Greenwood Tree. (Hardy would've known all about 'colly' birds I feel sure.)
As well as a novelist, poet and countryman Hardy was also an accomplished musician. Perhaps that's why I like this passage so well, even though the musicians all come to a sticky end.
It 'appended on the Sunday after Christmas, the last Sunday they every played in Longpuddle church though they didn't know that then…
