Christmas Surprises

We bought this Christmas tree years ago at our local garden centre. It was in the rescue area :-) and needed some love and attention.

Over the years it has grown well, we have trimmed branches out at the bottom and this year, for the first time, we lit it :-)

We didn't tell any one and let each person discover it on their own :-)

The little squirrel is returning daily :-) I make sure there are plenty of peanuts out for him, I don't want him digging up the bulbs!

HG has nicknamed him Arnie, small as he is he can bend the wire in the peanut feeder, hence most of the peanuts are spilled on to the grass. Now I put the nuts directly onto the lawn!

Our Christmas Day Tradition

Because HG only has Christmas Day off before returning to work on Boxing Day we always try to make the most of the one day. One of the traditions we started early on was a walk after dinner.

When I was a child one of my Christmas memories (among many others :-}) is the picture of my father, grandfather, and uncle, asleep in the chairs after dinner :-)

I admit it was my idea to keep HG awake but we all feel better for it. Coming home to the log fire, a cup of tea (or something stronger) and opening some more presents helps to make a pleasant afternoon :-)

Small children always need an incentive to walk and ours was to feed the ducks :-) We still do this even now :-) This year the gulls were determined to be part of the action!
I had hoped to get the perfect picture of a gull and reflection but the light was fading fast.
This looked like a typical picture of winter :-)
No steam trains on Christmas Day!
A Christmas reflection :-)


Fading Light
And a walk along the prom :-)
I hope you all have pleasant memories of Christmas Day :-)

More Visitors to the Garden

One of the bad things about winter is that I don't get to spend so much time in the garden. No time before heading off to work and it is dark before I am home. This means that any wildlife that visit our garden don't really know me and so its difficult to catch them on camera. The minute I open a door, or even step too near to a window, they are gone. It is one of the things I hope to remedy while on holiday :-) I have also started putting out niger seeds to attract more finches, no half decent photos yet but they are beginning visit.

These photos are again taken through the window with the longer lens.

This plump little robin visits us often :-) He seems to like anything and everything on the bird table but especially suet.

The blackbirds always watch carefully for the raisins.

And HG spotted this squirrel in the garden yesterday. He climbed the post, sat for a while watching and then came back down and disappeared into the hedge. I suspect he is keeping his eye on the peanuts!

I wonder if it is a sign of a colder winter that more mammals, as well as birds, are visiting the garden this year.

Updated Thursday - All the peanuts have been eaten! :-)

Frosty Friday

We woke to find a thick frost had covered the garden last night.

It had reached the corner that, so far, had been protected. I think I will find frost damage tomorrow when I take a look in the daylight.
The birds were singing before dawn and asking for food. Their table was bare.

The frost decorated the garden furniture

The little wildlife pond froze for the first time this winter.

The Lady's Mantle was dusted in white.

The Ice Plants still stand to attention :-)

And the cyclamen continue to flower :-)

Somehow it felt comfortable to have this frost. It is more like the winter days of my childhood when we needed our gloves and scarf to keep warm. The cold comfortable days when Jack Frost came to the windows and mums warmed clothes in front of the fire :-)

There's A Fox in the Garden!

Two posts in less than 24 hours is a first for me :-)

This one is too important not to record though. The photos were taken in a hurry, and through the window, so they are not the best.

I came home at lunchtime today and while standing in the kitchen to make sandwiches watched the birds at the feeders. Something caught my eye, at first I thought it was a cat, and I laid down the bread and butter ready to shoo it away.

As I looked closer though it was not a cat but a fox. At midday, and in our garden! He wandered along the path and stopped to drink from a dish.

He (or possibly she of course) looked tired, very young, scruffy and needed a wash and brush!

I smiled that he kept to the path and not the wet grass! Sensible fox! I was just beginning to wonder if he was sick when his ears pricked up and he began to eye up the birds!

He then decided to have a good scratch and wandered off back through the hedge.

The weather here has been so awful this past week I think he has laid low somewhere near, and as today is the best we have had for well over a week, he decided to be brave. We have never seen a fox in our garden before. I have never seen a fox at midday!

Pressures of Christmas

It is true that Christmas brings pressures. It shouldn't and we can all help to ease them.

HG and son both work in retail and the pressures of Christmas for them are great.

They have both been selling cards and decorations and presents for several months. So this post is for all those misunderstood sales people in stores around the world.

We are a close family and Christmas is special to us as it is too many other families. But some people do seem to miss the point and forget that those who serve them in the stores are human and that they have their own families and problems too.

One year, on Boxing Day, a very frustrated mother told my husband that he had ruined her family's Christmas because the playstation she had purchased from his store did not work. She rang the store before the doors were open. She was not pleasant.

Please, please, if you are buying presents for your family, which will have such a devastating effect if they don't work, try them before you wrap them.

And if you have cause to take items back to store, please remember it is not the fault of the member of staff if something doesn't work. They are only human and they are doing their best. Its not their fault either if you can't get the item that every other family wants for Christmas.

Christmas should be about more than this!

So count to 10 before you accuse others of spoiling your fun.
Test your gifts carefully before you give them.
Assemble bikes before the day in case there is a nut missing!
Check that electrical items have the right fittings.
And don't forget the batteries :-)

Stay calm, plan ahead and be kind.
Let Christmas be full of joy :-)

Wet, Wild and Windy

It has rained for a week! The weather is horrible, cold, windy, heavy scrawly showers, hail, thunder storms. Everything except snow or sunshine :-)

Last night we thought we would lose the roof, the house seemed to shake with the strength of the gusts. I am surprised no damage was done. The forecast for the weekend is more of the same :-)

I took this photo through the window. Every last leaf has been blown from our trees and this crows nest has been exposed. No sign of the crows though :-) Welcome to the British winter :-)