Tuesday 30th January- I spy with my little eye...

 'Let's go and have a Cornish pasty for lunch at Nymans Gardens ' sez I.

It was just before noon, a gloriously sunny day and not as appalling cold as it has been recently. 

So off we go. but...

When we arrived at the entrance gates there was a girl bundled up in layers of warm clothes, thick work boots, scarf, hat, gloves, standing by a notice

THE CAR PARK IS FULL, PLEASE DO NOT QUEUE

She had a sympathetic smile and was signalling that we should drive on - to where?

I had once worked at a school further down the road and knew we could turn at the pub. In the end we did turn, but instead of retracing our route just kept going, along lanes, through villages, past farms, until we found our way home again. 

I made a classy macaroni cheese with bacon and onion and peas and sweet corn all in the cheese sauce. Not a Cornish pasty, but pretty good all the same.

Along the way I spied trees (obviously), these trees in particular;

From top to bottom 

A plane tree... I was searching through my memory to identify the tree, then remembered the months either side of Christmas 2013 when I had several overnight stays at the Brompton hospital for tests. The ward was on the top floor level with the plane trees that lined the streets.

A ruthlessly pollards mature tree, I'm not sure if it is an oak or a beech, just by the local shop. This could be a candidate for 'following a tree' 2026, as the willow by the duck pond that I had my eye on was taken down recently. 

Several weeping willows near us have green leaves.  Surely they must left over from this year? 

There's a willow in someone's garden further down our road where the thin branches are bright orange., like a fire. When I used to travel all over the country from school to school there were things I used to watch for; one was a place where a couple of willows blazed red and orange, a shocking display of colour in an otherwise drab countryside.

On the road back from Nymans I was really pleased to see a rookery that I didn't know about, just a few, maybe half a dozen nests. Goody goody; I used to watch the progress of several rookeries on my commutes. 

It's probably a good thing I've stopped driving; there's far too much scenery to see.

Monday 29th December - inbetween times

This colourful glass column is a Galileo thermometer 

and you can follow the link to Wikipedia to find out all about it. I understand the principle enough to be comfortable saying that the glass bubbles contain different liquids that rise and fall with different temperatures. Each bubble has a little label dangling from it. 

All day the yellow 18°C bubble has been at the bottom of the column, with the 20°C, 22°C, 24°C, and 26°C bubbles above. This means the temperature is between 18°C and 20°C, therefore 19°C, which explains why I'm wearing my poncho over my fleece, shirt and vest...

I have a blanket handy too, just in case...

Today my lovely husband BB cut my hair for me. I think it's up there with cleaning the oven as a least favourite activity, but does it with a good grace. The long straggly ends dangling onto my shoulders that have been distressing me for several weeks are all gone. I am delighted by the results, even though I had envisaged something in-between my long hair and my new short hair style... we're always being caught out by the way one's hair is so much longer when wet compared to dry. 

I'm very grateful for his neat work. Visiting a hair dresser is difficult, from the point of view of avoiding respiratory infections. I always mean to try and book a mobile hairdresser to come and cut my hair out of doors in the warmer weather, and then suddenly it is winter again. 

We didn't listen to Christmas carols much over Christmas.  How about Vaughan Williams giving us a 12 minute fantasia on Christmas carols as a catch up?

London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Richard Hickox

Sunday 28th December - towards next year

 I think it must be because tomorrow is a Monday, but it feels as though we are nearly into next year even though New Year's Day isn't until Thursday. 

I can start using my new diary for real tomorrow. It's been necessary to have two appointment diaries running in parallel for several months as the 2026 events come trickling in so moving over completely will be a relief.

I will take my last 'following a tree' photograph on Wednesday (or a day or so before, depending on the weather). Looking out, I can see that the last few leaves have finally dropped.

Drawing the tree was like creating a scruffy fractal image. The branches come all twisty out from the trunk, and divide, and divide, and divide until you stop. 

The amaryllis continues to be amazing. I noticed the leaves for the first time today.

Music; 

Philip Fowke playing the Andante variation from Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

I was given a beautiful, tiny little handmade book by a friend this Christmas. On each page she had written one of the Names of God, and a Bible reference for it 'as an aid to meditation'.

I have a mind like a butterfly that doesn't stick to one thought for very long; music like the Rachmaninov variation above helps... today's page has

'I am the Bread of Life'; John 6, 48-51

 I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Jesus, the bread that came down from heaven at Christmas....

Saturday 27th December - the day after the day after Christmas

It's been a good couple of days. 

Eating Christmas food;

Reading Christmas books;

Working away at Christmas kits;

Planting up a bowl of crocus bulbs (one of my presents);

Eating chocolate;

Eating Christmas biscuits;

Quiet, peaceful, with time to reflect, to marvel at the amaryllis, now 55 cm tall and about to flower

Time to stand and watch all the little birds busy busy busy at the bird feeders,

The weather has been bright and sunny but bitterly bitterly cold. I've enjoyed looking at the garden without the need to go outside (although I did nip out to put my crocuses in the shed; the instructions say to leave them there for 10 weeks or they won't flower)

I hope you have been enjoying Christmas as best as your circumstances allow; you can hope and wish for the perfect Christmas but one never knows...

I remember the time BB was called out for an IT emergency just as he had started to carve the turkey. My father took over and we carried on; BB returned about five hours later, ravenously hungry, and grateful for the generous helping set aside for him...

Or when my parents caught flu just before they were coming to stay with us; one of them staggered to M&S and 'bought Christmas ' which they cooked once they were well enough...

and the many other occasions when plans went awry...

they all become part of the big family story...

People who have been reading this blog for a while will know that my father spent last Christmas in hospital with a broken hip and died early in January from flu/covid plus old, old age. 

This hasn't made me sad; he was so frail and tired, and had he lived I doubt he would have recovered from the op. I can't help feeling he picked his moment to 'shuffle of this mortal coil' when life had become increasingly arduous.

So this Christmas has been a good one, quiet, peaceful, relaxing and reflective. 

Wednesday 24th December - Christmas Eve

Yesterday's post never got further than just the title - I'm not sure what happened - I must have been distracted and then forgotten...

But today - We've made it all the way to Christmas Eve! 

On Tuesday I wasn't too sure we'd clear the table; it still looked like this;

Improved, but a long way to go.

This morning, however, not only was it mostly clear, but I was able to get out the Christmas tablecloth, faded now after perhaps twenty years since my mother made it for is one year;

We even have a few early snowdrops for Christmas. I watch for them every year; sometimes there are only one or two barely open buds. This year is a bumper year, I've never seen so many in flower before Christmas Day.

The little Advent calendar house is complete

and the amaryllis is astonishing. I was standing staring at it, wondering where all that green stalk had come from. A few weeks ago it was a dry bulb pushed into some compost. Since then I've merely watered it a couple of times, and from somewhere it has grown those long stalks, and large buds. I've found a larger, heavier pot to stand it in as it looked liable to topple over any day now. 

I wrapped the last few presents for friends, and we delivered them after lunch. For years now we've had salmon for our Christmas Eve meal, and this year was no different. I roasted onions, peppers, tomatoes and sliced potatoes in the oven for 30 minutes, turning them half way through, and then added the salmon fillets for another 10 minutes. So easy, and very good!

We've watched Carols from Kings - if you missed it, find a quiet hour and catch up on iplayer or BBCSounds. It was beautiful. 

It's heading for bedtime now. I wish you all the best for Christmas Day, however you are spending it, with family and friends, or on your own.

Here's the choir of Trinity College Cambridge singing Balulow from Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols

Monday 22nd December - Clearing the decks

The boxes of Christmas decorations have been taken back upstairs, and what hasn't been done won't be done now. Today's main efforts were stringing all the cards around the room at ceiling height,

and hanging baubles on the rose bush outside. (Picture tomorrow). Not much left to do - the last presents to wrap and deliver to local friends and, oh, yes, the other half of the dining room table...

I would very much like to get this sorted in time for Christmas...  we've kind of ignored it for about a year. I'm sure it is full of forgotten treasures though, so could be quite fun (typing in the text doesn't quite convey my dubious tone of voice).

Meanwhile here is the last of the Advent O antiphons, the one for 23rd December. I suppose the night-time services on Christmas Eve were considered to be part of Christmas, rather in the way the Midnight Communion service on Christmas Eve was always a part of Christmas Day, more important in some ways that the Christmas Day service.    

O Emmanuel,

Rex et legifer noster,

expectatio Gentium,et Salvator earum:

veni ad savandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.

O Emmanuel,

our king and our lawgiver,

the hope of the nations and their Saviour:

Come and save us, O Lord our God.

The text of these antiphons is very familiar to us from the Advent hymn 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel' .

Here are Chet Valley Churches singing it;