We followed the Schoolhouse Burn, past the horse chestnut tree and the small hydro station

up into the forest

past he Laird's grave

and back down onto the road .Only about 40 minutes but very refreshing in the cold air.

Thank you for all your kind wishes and I do hope you have all had a lovely break.

..comfort and joy this Christmas.

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches.

I did this little painting years ago and just bring it out at Christmas.

Today I share it with you all, and thank you all for being here.

Happy Christmas.

..about Christmas. If anything..

I cherish the traditions both national ones (King's College  Cambridge on Christmas Eve) and family ones. I cherish the messages from friends included with their cards, I cherish the lit trees in house windows seen  on adark journeys. I cherish memories of past Christmases, and the memory of my lovely friend Elaine, whose funeral I attended today.

I think I may have found my word for 2026.

..don't you think?

I lost a few pounds during my sugar free November and am nearly at my goal weight and feeling good. So, the cunning strategy is to eat light and super-healthy for a few days before Christmas and a few days after so as not to sabotage my progress yet still enjoy some  special treats.

I am about to juice this lot.

..about having the house perfect! A quite unnecessary ambition. But one small area in each room looking festive and pretty is very pleasing and easy to achieve.

 A more extravagant supermarket bunch of flowers than usual makes me feel very celebratory. I've never seen conifer and cones  with lilies before, and I think they look wonderful.

You don't have to have the upmarket stores to get great flowers. Both Morrison's and the Coop here have really lovely bouquets in stunning colour combinations for £10.

Will you treat yourself?

..I am watching Nigella Christmas videos. Plan to make her spiced nuts and red cabbage , red onion and cranberry dish.

Now let's see if I can get back to sleep..

..like old friends..

Somehwere beneath the barrage of commercial hype and the bitterness of a few cynics, below the radar as it were, I will have a simple, gentle, more private Christmas. A soft Christmas, a compassionate one.

I'd like to have a soul nourishing time and reach out to the people I know arre recently bereaved, are ill or having a hard time one way or another. A call, a letter with the carrd, some flowers or a shared lunch, a donation in their name..

I'm hosting Christmas dinner and doing presents and cards and treats and will love all hat, but I'll make time for 
this little persoonal way too.

The Swedish lights, the Christmas card bag and the snowy painting start the decorations.
What kind of Christmas will you choose to have this year?

ut..by Helmsley where every house and every shop has beautiful tubs of flowering plants, I decided I could do better with my porch. 

Lifted this rather sombre arrangement with a red cyclamen.

Also upgraded the ash bucket to a whole new level!

My word for this year was decisive. A very goof word indeed.  I am deciding what kind of Christmas I want this year. It can be easy to forget that we have some choice.

..to stay at home while Storm Barm careered around us very noisily. Some small damage here and muddy everywhere. Today, no water...

Winter could be long and bleak without Christmasin the middle of it, don't you think?

Time to get the decorations out.

I do like the design of this year's Christmas stamps. Designed by Paula Doherty.

If that's not a contradiction in terms! I am referring to the colour of the hellebore flowers which opened in time to decorate the Christmas table, but the food was pretty sumptuous too. 'Best ever Christmas dinner.'

We really had the nicest day.

I hope that you did too.

It's 5.40 in the morning and I have just lit the fire and made a cup of tea. I have a nince pie on a plate beside me here as I write. It is blissfully quiet now that the wind has abated.  I had another power cut yesterday.  Many mature trees  have been blown over, including the one with my owl box on it, and the road was closed for a bit so my younger daughter did the Christmas food shop and she is bringing it all today as I am hosting Christmas dinner (hope the power cuts are over!).

One of the things I love most about Christmas is that so many people all around the world celebrate this one day. Astonishingly 370 million people tune in live to  the radio service from King's College Cambridge at 3 o'clock today.. In our crazy fractured world isn't that just WONDERFUL? 

I will be listening as we prepare tomorrow's food.  Will you? A marvellous time of unity.

Here is the post In Praise of Homely in which I ramble on about decorations! Whether your preparations are plain and simple or elaborate I hope your day goes smoothly and you enjoy every minute of it!As someone once said 'You might as well be happyy'.   :-)

Home made Christmas Tree Ginger Biscuits We used to hang them on the tree. One year my daughter's usually well behaved dog ate all the ones he could reach!

I could be content with a very plain Christmas, but I think I would actually be 'styling' it as plain, which could be kind of falsre if you see what I mean. As someone who loves variety and change and arranging things I do feel the need to push the boat out and make an extra effort to be different. We can afeter all be homely any day of rhe year.

I think I have evolved a way of being both simple and festive by starting early in December eith branches of fir around the house, then sprigs of holly and a scented candle or two ...I gradually build up to a more  flamboyant look as Christmas Day nears. Nearly ready for the finale..

The window Christmas decorations of Ask Italian restaurant feature the statue of The Duke of Wellington with his traffic cone - an exapmple of a kind of wordless, irreverent Glaswegian humour which perhaps only Glaswegians fully understand..

Read more about it here

!
The days will get longer now, but I wish the gale force winds would let up!

..were fun, and Glasgow was much less crowded tham Edinburgh.

But as we say in Scorland 'East west, hame's best'.

..what you want your Christmas to be. My friend says women at this time of year become 'Christmas machines'.

Don't be a Christmas machine!  Step back, apply brain, choose a way of doing Christmas that means something to you. There's still time. Make a cup of something nice, get a pen and paper and 20 minutes to yourself and think about it...

..towards Christmas.

Down with the summer garden painting

and up with the Christmas star.

 A little bit every day. We'll get there.

..by some of the natural decorations  I saw in Edinburgh..

At the Sankta Lucia service,

in the Urban  Angel restaurant,

I went foraging in the holly and beech hedgeows which  grow all along our village road. My robin followed me, twittering quietly and taking food from my hand! (I keep some in my jacker pocket.) Perfect company.

Candle from Ikea.

'Fireside' candle from The White Company - I love this scent.

Far from the mad crowds in Princes Street Elliots studio had a two day event selling very beautiful things of the finest quality.

Expensive, a bit, but I like to support artisan ventures if I can. I admire the commitment and integrity and skill. I bought this woven tree ornament, some soap, lip balm and narzipan fruits.

Thank you so much Liz - I woulld not have found this place without you! I enjoyed the whole lovely excperience.


I can't get the link to Elliots to work, sorry, but Mr Google will take you to their website.


Batten down the hatches all of you  in the storm alert areas here in uk! (Thinking of you MaryB.) I am listening to strong winds and heavy rain as I write here in my warm cosy home. So grateful.

..if you are visiting Edinburgh this festive season. On Saturday the Christmas Market in Princes Street was packed full, behind high barricades with burly security guards in high viz jackets at entrances and exits very much in evidence. It used to be an open space where you could drift in and out at will.

We made our way to St Andrews Square where a gentler atmosphere prevailed, not crowded and child friendly - toast your own marshmallows, write a letter to Santa in an alpine hut, wander through the Christmas Tree Maze - a hundred or more real trees with simple soft white lights. I think little children could easily imagine they were deep in  a forest. I know I did, but then Christmas brings out the child in me..

..by the Sankta Lucia service and procession  of the Scottish Swedish Society in Edinburgh....

I firsr experienced this ceremony in Stockholm in in the early 2000s (a huge outdoor event - it was like being in a  in a fairy tale) and last year a very beautifull Sankta Lucia in York Minster, (see 13 Dec 2023 ) but this one, in a friendly connunity, was  charming, more intimate, and with fika afterwards was as much of a delight.

..to myself.  I bought myself this nativity calendar because I so love the image of Milan Cathedral. You may remember it from my Christmas card last year. Utterly magical, and definitely putting me in the mood.

Short blog break - have a lovely weekend everyone.