Monthly Musing - Remembering Christmas - December 2018

I am walking with the dog to the post box to re-post a Christmas card that was wrongly delivered to us.  It’s dark, it’s raining, I’ve forgotten my mittens and my hands are freezing.   The dog is oblivious to the dark, the cold and the rain and feels that it is his duty to minutely inspect and sniff every bush and lamp post we pass by.  Oh, come on!  It’s going to take us forever to get there at this rate!  It’s ten days till Christmas Day.  I’ve got cards to write, presents to wrap, (dare I admit it?) presents still to buy, cooking, cleaning, tidying still to do and the last place that I want to be is out in the dark, empty streets when there are a hundred and one other jobs that I should be doing instead.

We cross the road and walk down one of the streets where the houses and their gardens are lit up with lights and Christmas decorations.  It looks lovely but I’m not feeling remotely festive.  I’m feeling cold and grumpy.  The dog has stopped again.  Oh, come on!  I can see the post box from where I am standing but feel like I’m never going to get there because the dog is now trying to get under someone’s hedge.  Has he no sense of urgency?

This and that

Hellooo!  I'm just dipping in to say a quick hello before I rush off again - I don't know about you but at this time of year, it feels as if everything is suddenly gaining speed and hurtling towards Christmas at a great rate of knots - and it's not even December!  It's been a full moon this week and some people do think that makes the world (and it's inhabitants) a little crazy - what do you think?

Whether it's the moon or not, I think it must also be something to do with the shorter nights - by the time it reaches 4.30pm and it's pretty much dark, I'm wanting to snuggle up by the fire with my knitting, never mind make dinner and get on with jobs!  It's been wet and miserable here over the last couple of days, too, which hasn't helped, and my Instagram feed is full of the snow over in Canada which looks so lovely even though I know that such early snow is making life difficult.  It just looks so much prettier than the rain battering against the windows!

I've started feeding the birds again - I don't bother so much over the summer as I find that they don't come for the food as much but once it starts to get past the growing season then the birds are back.  We had an unexpected visitor at the end of the summer ...

Monthly Musing - November 2018 - Back to nature

“What’s this leaf, Mum?”

Small daughter and I were walking the dog and she’d picked a large leaf blown down by the Autumn winds.  Because I’ve spent years as a parent answering questions, it didn’t occur to her that I wouldn’t know – but in this case I actually did (it was from a horse chestnut tree).  From being young, I’ve always been interested in nature and have more than a few books to help me identify trees, wildflowers and animals that aren’t generally found in the garden.  It might be easier to look things up on the internet these days and I do that too, but I still love my books.

Despite my best efforts, neither of my girls have been particularly interested in naming the trees and flowers that we’ve passed on our walks over the years and this latest conversation with small daughter had me wondering why.  Is it because they’ve always known that I’ll have answer so they’ve not needed to (although often we’ve had to look something up when we got home), or perhaps they don’t have the time as there are so many more things to capture their attention – gone are the days when children’s TV was only on for an hour a day and after that you had to make your own entertainment – or maybe they are just not that bothered about it?  I’ve learnt not to worry too much about it as a lack of interest at a young age doesn’t mean that you won’t become interested later.  I re-trained as a gardener after big daughter had gone to school, fascinated by the same Latin names and soil structure information that would have left me cold only a few years earlier.  It’s never too late to learn something new.