15th December 2021.

I am always surprised how long it takes to put up the Christmas Decorations at Bramley Cottage. Last year, although I thought I had brought enough greenery and holly I needed some more. It didn’t take long to find the holly trees on the hill that we have relied on for years for a handful of holly with berries. Unfortunately when I went there were no berries, just green leaves and no berries to be found any where. This year I came with a bag full of variegated holly from my garden and some with berries from a tree from the forest behind my house.

We have a small Christmas Tree in a red pot that for most of the year lives outside the greenhouse. It did grow a bit year on year, but now it seems to take so long to recover after it has been in the house for a fortnight in the winter it just stays the same size year by year. This year I found some solar powered lights and hopefully it will be bright enough to shine well into the evening.

We now have a six foot tree in the conservatory. It seems to fit well, even if it is a bit chilly in there. Each of the lights are reflected at least twice by the double glazing and if it does decide to shed some of it’s needles they will be easy to deal with.

There are two further sets of lights in the living room, and amazingly to start with, they are all working! I found lots of transfers this year to stick on the windows and there was enough holly and greenery in the end to finish the room.