Week 3

Trees out, kissing in

Hello! I hope you have had a good week. Normally I kick off with a little sum up of a few random seasonal things I have done - strolled along a snowy hillside, lit a cosy fire - but this week I have done none of those things because the electricians are in my house and so I have packed up my entire house and moved out. Was it sunny? Was it snowing? Who knows. I just arrived gasping and dusty at a little rented place we have for the week and collapsed there. So this might not be my most thought provoking of posts, and I hope you will forgive me.

Before we move on the the main agenda, some matters arising: there is a brand new offer over on Scribehound Gardening, which gives you 3 months access to 30 of the best garden writers each month (one of which is me…) for just £3. It’s a hugely varied collection of voices and I have been writing a lunar gardening and garden folklore column over there. My latest is on wassailing and the art of saying thank you, and I have one coming up on the 1st February about Imbolc and potatoes, and resisting the February gardener’s itch… If any of that sounds like it might be up your street do have a look, it is shaping up to be something quite special.

To business: this is our weekly community post in which I tell you something seasonal that I have noticed this week, something entirely ‘this week of the year’, and you tell me yours, in the comments. Here’s mine:

Trees out

I was out walking the dogs on Christmas tree collection day. Poor them, so undignified after all their glories. A small ripple of scandal on my street, in that someone clearly missed Christmas tree collection day and actually dumped their tree on someone else’s drive! The anarchy! Our little community is rocked.

I like seeing the little collections of pine needles on the pavements here and there, post-collection, memories of what once was. And soon they will have gone too.

Kissing in

A bonus one here, and no great surprise to anyone, but in my latest stalking of the seasonal aisle at Tesco’s I found…Valentines cards. By the look of these cards this seems to all be one company, in near identical style, attempting to cover all possible bases with one loved-up cartoon dog. I’m reckoning ‘From the Dog’ is going to sell out faster than ‘Dad’.

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That’s it from me. Please reconnect me with the seasonal world out there and tell me all about the beautiful little things that you have seen/smelt/spotted/eaten etc…that are particular to this week in the year.