Happy Christmas.

I listened to the news this morning, while chopping veg for lunch and for the feasting to come Christmas is a lovely holiday period when the family can be all together, relaxing, laughing and joking and eating tasty food. The news was about Britain's need to be ready for war. I thought what foolish creatures we humans are. We have such incredible capabilities and yet can sink to such idiotic behaviour. Who wins in a war? Nobody. If that energy were put to good use, what a joyous place our small planet could be. I don't use my blog for political or private concerns, I use it to celebrate the pleasant things in my life but the talk of preparing to be on a war footing I found deeply disturbing. How has our world come to this? We put the Christmas tree from the garden into the conservatory so that we didn't have to drag wet branches into the house. Now we've brought it into the house and the lights are in place but the ornaments will be hung when the family arrive.

I wish for us all, dear blogging friends, a very Happy Christmas and a kinder and more peaceful year to come. Last week I went with the family for a wander round the Christmas market in town. The seasonal ice rink looked cold but tempting seen through the trees. I'm now at an age where there are things I'd love to do but know would be foolish to attempt, and, since my skating ability is laughable and my bones none too clever, skating is out! Instead we ate hot, sugared turros, with a side dip of Nutella, as we wandered about. Delicious!

We've had very heavy rain and wind. It brought down a lot of brash from the trees and I went into the garden to collect things to make Christmas wreaths for the outer doors.It is easy just to wrap the falllen silver birch tree pieces around each other to make a pliable, and rather wobbly wreath.

It is very light and just hangs from the little fox head door knocker.

The wreaths have a bit of overhead cover and are holding up well to the weather so far.