Wreathing the changes

As this bitterly cold, clear weather continues, the preparations for Advent seem utterly appropriate despite my sense that the year has rushed precipitately on from an autumn that felt as if it were only yesterday. What always takes me by surprise is the way retirement doesn't seem to have helped with the sense of things crowding in on one - in my working years there would be exams correction to finish, folios to urge on (or rather their compilers), the Christmas edition of the school newspaper to supervise, with late night sessions in my classroom with a group of half a dozen often hilarious students. And then there were the musical events - not just the ones I've been involved in, but also school ones, involving Himself and our boys, and some years a Scout Gang Show ... and somehow, in the midst of all that, the presents and the cake making and the food ...

And of course it's not like that now. Today's seasonal huvtae was the creation of the Advent Wreath in church, from the greenery we foraged yesterday. I had arranged to meet Di at the church, and we've done it so often together that in fact it took us less than an hour, from getting into the tower room to retrieve stand and candles, to finding where the Oasis was hidden, to bending the candle holders so that they hold firm and don't land the burning candles in among the greenery, to poking all the branches and leaves into the wet oasis. We also made a foray along the path to look for the wonderful pink berries on the bush in the grounds, only to find that the birds had beaten us to it - not that we grudge them berries, but we really like adorning the heart of the wreath with them. The sharp-eyed might notice our 2023 variant: we used some of the delicate lichen we found on the forest floor instead. We were both (fairly) quietly pleased with the effect. 

By  the time we'd swept up and tidied, we were both frozen. I think I may get chilblains on my fingers.

Other activities today included our annual visit from the nice chap who looks after our money (we being really too dopey to be entrusted with such things) and a brisk trot along to the Co-op for some things I can't get in Morrisons.

Such as ... pork and black pudding sausages. I'll let you know ...