Deck the Halls

It's church decorating time on Friday so the Flower Ladies have been asking for greenery. As we have loads of holly and ivy in abundance we've been able to spend some of this glorious afternoon indulging in one of our favourite activities of chopping down bits of tree and bush. This was always a difficult task when we had Freddie our Springer Spaniel because he used to run away with all the really interesting off cuts and chew them up as fast as he could. We managed to get together quite a bundle this afternoon including some lovely fragrant bay leaves. I think the birds must have been having a pre-Christmas feast because a month or so ago the big holly tree was dripping in berries but we were only able to harvest a couple of branches with any berries on at all today.
Second batch of mince pies cooking as I write. Got to go to work tomorrow so my training to be a domestic goddess will have to stop for a couple of days.