noticing

Photographs from my walk yesterday - noticing the moon, the winter hedgerows, the sunset.

The weather is unbelievably mid and un-Christmassy but yesterday I could feel the stillness that seems to occur around the winter solstice. We will have a quiet Christmas spending time at home and seeing friends and family. Three of us have stopped work for Christmas now and all four of us are at home. Very grateful for the days ahead and the time we spend together.

knitting, Christmas hat

On the last walking group walk before Christmas, I am told we should wear festive headgear preferably with sparkles, glitter and tinsel. Anyone who has read this blog for a while will know that I am not in favour of short lived festive "tat', made in unknown factories in far flung corners of the world and shipped here to be used for a day or two before ending up in landfill as I am sure so much of the Christmas stuff on sale does.

So I needed something to wear that didn't cost the earth. My hat is made from leftover Jamieson and Smith wool (2 ply jumper weight) and I adapted a pattern for a Fairisle beanie from the Traditional Sweater Book.

I substituted the fair isle patterns for snowflakes from Snawheid by Kate Davies and a simple holly design.

As sparkle was specifically mentioned, a few decorations and some tinsel temporarily borrowed from the tree will add the glitz!  - but only for the walk, the rest of the time its just a snug seasonal beanie.

counting down

The advent calendar, counting down to Christmas. Our Christmas is very quiet these days and we don't really have any Christmas traditions but I still fill the advent calendar with chocolates and the weekend before Christmas we will decorate a Christmas tree.

The chocolates in the calendar have changed over the years. when the boys were small there were chocolate coins, now we are grown-up and have after dinner mints!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. I am a day late but January 1st was dull and grey and yielded not a single photograph. Today we saw blue skies and white clouds, a much more fitting start to the new year.

Christmas is cleared away now, the Christmas tree taken back out into the garden to rest and recuperate after its time inside. It is mild today so the change in temperature wasn't too great.

The photograph below is the only one I took during Christmas week, a brief time of calm in the middle of the stormy weather, a bit like the holiday really - time to pause, a break from regular routines.

Working days have started again and we feel we are returning to normal after the holidays. Much as I enjoy the break from the usual routine and having everybody at home, I am always ready to return to the rhythm of our ordinary days.

Wishing everyone a peaceful 2014.

Christmas tree

Early yesterday morning when I was hanging out the washing before it was light, I noticed out little Christmas tree blown over... again. It has been so windy lately that this poor tree has spent most of its time horizontal. I stood it upright before I went to work.

In the afternoon I brought it inside and left it by the back door to dry a little. This is the fourth year we have brought it inside at Christmas and its beginning to look very straggly.

Today I moved it into the lounge and decorated it - it still looks a bit straggly but I've become quite fond or our "wonky" tree.

Today is the solstice, the darkest time, a pause between the shortening daylight and the lighter days to come. I have had candles burning most of the day, evergreens and light brought inside the house to remind us of the returning sunlight and longer days.

Happy Solstice for today

and lots of good wishes for a Happy Christmas.

quiet December

It is a quiet time of year here. The time between autumn and Christmas. Today I wrote my Christmas cards and raked up leaves in the garden so perhaps I have both autumn and Christmas.

Christmas is quiet also. We are a small family so very little shopping and present buying. We decorate the house very simply with holly and ivy and then the Christmas tree will be brought into the house on the weekend before Christmas. Sometimes I feel I miss out on the hustle and bustle of Christmas but on lovely quiet days like today, I'm glad we keep things simple.

cosy

Three days before Christmas Day and we are ready. The house is decorated, everybody is at home and the grocery shopping is done.

This is the third year that we have brought our Christmas tree in from the garden for the festive period. It is a little oddly shaped now as it has grown unevenly but it is inexpensive and eco-friendly to re-use the same tree and I quite like its quirky shape.

I have decorated the house with evergreens from the garden or picked during my walks, I like to bring a little of the outside into the house at this time of year. It isn't glittery, glitzy or perfectly styled but its warm and cosy which is a good holiday feeling.

Have a very Happy Christmas.

Happy Christmas

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a peaceful new year.

Wrapping paper

The red and white tablecloth in the picture was embroidered by my great aunt and I use it every Christmas. So much work went into embroidering it, it seems a shame that it has only ever been used for a few days each year.

This year I photocopied a corner of the cloth using my printer and made some very individual wrapping paper. Of course this only works for small presents unless you have access to a larger photocopier but it is fun to do.

My great aunt died about ten years ago when she was over ninety. I don't suppose she could have imagined that I would be photocopying her tablecloth to make my own wrapping paper but her generation were used to make things for themselves and I think she would have approved.

A quiet December

My December is very quiet at the moment. When my family were growing up this was one of the most hectic times of the year, full of baking, end of term activities and Christmas plays and parties.

This year with my husband in America for a couple of weeks and the boys away at University I can hardly believe its December - its so quiet and peaceful. After all the years of hectic "busyness" it makes a nice change. It is lovely that when I come home at the end of the day, I can lock the doors knowing that I am tucked up warm inside and don't have to venture out at all.

In just over a week the whole family will be home and then I will decorate the house and everything will be busier and noisier. Until that time I am able to quietly wait for Christmas. Outside in the garden last years Christmas tree is also patiently waiting for the festivities to begin.

Season's Greetings

Outside the temperature has risen to just above freezing and the melting snow on my neighbours roof has slowly dripped down creating these very Christmassy icicles on the holly bush.

Inside I have holly and ivy decorating all the picture frames and at last we have the tree. Its a very tiny tree from the village shop since the weather prevented us from venturing out to the Christmas tree farm.

It was the winter solstice yesterday and I like to follow the tradition of having lots of evergreens in the house.

Now the grocery shopping is done and the house decorated we are all ready for Christmas.

Season's Greetings to everyone, have a really lovely holiday time.

Starting to decorate

We won't be choosing the tree until eldest son is back from university at the weekend but the wreath is on the front door and the holly tree in the garden is covered in berries this year.

I picked this a little early before the birds could eat all the berries. They won't go hungry though, there were still plenty of berries left on the branches that I couldn't reach.

Happy Christmas

A photograph of some holly for Christmas although this was taken before the recent cold weather.  The birds have stripped the berries from the hedges over the past few days. This morning as well as the usual blackbirds I saw two Redwings in the garden. They are not very regular garden visitors here and many years we don't see them at all although they are probably in the surrounding woods.


The snow is melting very rapidly now as the temperatures have started to rise.  I think there will still be some snow for Christmas Day but not that much, more of a sludgy muddy Christmas rather than a white one!


Happy Christmas to everyone. 

Holly and tree-carvings

Last weekend I was out collecting more evergreens to bring into the house. The birds are eating their way through all the berries around here so I decided to pick my holly early.  It is now in a bucket of water in the shed where it should stay fresh until its time to bring it into the house.


There are lots of superstitions and folklore surrounding holly, most of which seem to be concerned with bringing bad luck.  It is supposed to be bad luck to cut down a holly tree and most especially bad luck if that tree self-seeded in that position.  I have a holly tree which must have grown from a seed dropped by a bird and I have let it grow although I have to prune it hard to keep it manageable, I don't want to tempt fate by cutting down a holly tree in my garden.


In the hedges near here there are often quite large holly trees which are left standing and the hedges are cut around them, possibly because they were once left to grow when a superstitious person was given the task of hedge cutting - at least the birds benefit from the extra berries on a full grown tree.

Thinking about cutting into trees, I wonder whether there is good or bad luck associated with carving initials on trees. Beech trees have always been popular for this because of the smooth bark. Most of the initials become so distorted as the tree grows that they become unrecognisable but these two carvings I noticed at the weekend were done on a large scale and have stood the test of time.


Here is a heart with a barely visible arrow through it.

I think the person who carved it wanted to make a big statement as the adjacent tree has LOVE in large letters carved along a branch. 

I wonder who carved these and how long ago? Perhaps they return to the woods sometimes to see if the carvings are still there, or maybe they have been forgotten?

December

Although the change from one month to the next is an artificial man-made boundary, today it was as if nature recognised the date and chose the first day of December for the first real white frost of the winter. 

This morning I could hear the sounds of ice being scraped off car windscreens before the early morning commute and in the garden there was a thin layer of ice on the tray of water the chickens like to drink from.  

I was glad of my coat, scarf and fingerless gloves when hanging out the washing on the icy line. I returned to the house barely able to move my fingers and was almost glad to tackle the pile of breakfast washing up so that my hands would thaw out.

Of all the months of the year, November is my least favourite and although the change of date has no real significance, I am pleased we are now in December.  We have hung up our Advent tree although the pockets are less full this year, only after the 19th when everyone is at home will we need chocolates for four.

The time leading up to Christmas is a quiet time now that the boys are grown.  I remember when they were at primary school, there were plates of mince pies to be made for Christmas Fairs and Cub-scout parties, there was the school play and the end of term carol service (both with more mince pies), lot of cards to be written, raffle tickets to be sold and an endless stream of Christmas artwork to be fastened to the fridge, it all seemed non-stop and Christmas lasted for weeks.


At the time, I loved being caught up in the hustle and bustle and imagined that I would miss it once the boys were older but now I find I don't mind at all. I appreciate the calm and slower pace that comes from having fewer things to do.

I walked in the lanes just outside the village today and brought home some catkins and ivy which are now on the mantlepiece next to the Advent candle.  Just the sort of quiet Christmas preparations I look forward to this year.

Mid-winter

We have just passed the shortest day and now the evenings are ever so slowly getting lighter.  I like this time, although the coldest winter weather is still to come, we are moving away from the darkest days.  The colours of the countryside are very soft and muted at this time of year. 

Without their covering of leaves the silhouettes of the trees contrast with the pale skies.

Although the quiet colours dominate outside, it is the more colourful evergreen plants that I bring into the house at this time of year.  I haven't been able to find much holly with berries this year, I think the birds ate them all during the cold weather earlier this month.  Instead I have picked this variegated foliage from the garden and mixed it with green ivy and twigs full of catkins. 

We bought our tree at the weekend and it is now taking up a lot more space in our living room than I intended - I think we got a bit carried away when we chose it and Christmas trees always seem to be bigger once they are inside!

My Christmas tablecloth is also inspired by evergreens.  This was embroidered by my great aunt although I don't ever remember seeing it used.  I often wonder why she used only red, I think I would have done the holly leaves in dark green.  Still, it certainly brightens up our Christmas table.

The Christmas preparations are almost finished, just a few more mince pies and a "chocolate log" to be made tomorrow and then theres nothing more to do except enjoy the holiday.

Happy Christmas!

Our Christmas Tree

Today we got bought our Christmas Tree. We had an artificial tree for many years but when it had become a little thin in places we decided to have a real tree and have had one ever since. A lot of Christmas Trees sold in the UK are imported. We import around 2 million trees from Denmark, Christmas Trees being their second biggest export industry after pigs!

We are lucky and are able to buy a locally and responsibly grown tree as we live near the Yattendon Estate. They grow a selection of Christmas Trees but our favourite is the traditional Norway Spruce. It has become a little bit of a tradition to visit the shop on the estate, choose our tree and then enjoy bacon rolls and mugs of tea in the barn.

We decorated the tree this afternoon. I like quite simple decorations and I like using the same ones every year.

After Christmas we will recycle our tree. Of the 7 million real trees that are bought each year only one in six are recycled. Our council recycles Christmas Trees or some local garden centres are offering a service where you take your Christmas Tree to be shredded and if you take along a container you can take home Christmas Tree mulch.