You may not be aware of this, but in just 377 days’ time it will be Christmas 2017. Amazing thought that, really, isn’t it. But, before that, it will soon be Christmas this year. You’re right, of course, that’s pretty amazing too!

To celebrate the approaching festival of Holiday, Bankstone has taken the unusual step of sending out folded pieces of card (each bearing the same attractive Christmas themed image on one side) to everyone it knows – except the ones it doesn’t really like any more.

The image featured on these folded pieces of card (see below) commemorates the famous occasion in 1843 on which residents of Balderdyke, Rubbley Bank and Hemmeridge reported seeing a 30-foot-tall red breasted bird hopping about on the snow-clad slopes of Beestleigh Moor.

Legend has it that, by the time some of the more adventurous locals, trepidaciously equipped with pitchforks and torches, had tromped their laborious way through deep snow and the fading light of a late December afternoon to where the giant bird had been sighted, all they could find was a handful of enormous avian footprints arrowed deep into snowdrifts.

Soon after that, heavy snow showers, still descending from now slatey skies, had obliterated any lingering sign of the creature locals dubbed ‘Big Robin’ ever having been there.

But in the Beestleigh Hamlets, to this very day, Big Robin’s Hop is celebrated every Christmas Eve with dancing, feasting and immoderate drinking.

Outside the Hamlets, however, the supposed visit of Big Robin is generally dismissed as the product of some kind of temporary collective insanity, most likely brought on by the very same immoderate alcohol consumption with which it is commemorated.

Just thought you’d like to know that.

christmas-landscape

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