Other than the modern day Scrooges, I, like most normal people, enjoy opening Christmas cards. They do seem to get better every year with delightful illustrations. My mother always used to tell me that I could have been a doctor because my hand writing is so illegible.
With that in mind, when Mrs GG pushes over a pile of cards for me to write – old school pals, colleagues and the like – I try very hard indeed to control my writing so that it can be read. I always use a fountain pen and black ink, leaving very little room for error or corrections.
It happens every year. One or two cards arrive, and we have absolutely no idea who they are from. They are addresses to us so clearly are from people who know. One looks like its from “Carlos Water” but it was postmarked Sheffield, not somewhere in the South Atlantic.
Come twelfth night we will check the cards against our list but I bet Carlos Water will still remain a mystery. But it is a lovely card so thank you Carlos.
The garden is looking particularly glum at this time of year. But still plenty to do – including the final clear up of leaves. I say final, but of course it won’t be. We have quite a few large oaks and they are holding onto their leaves like grim death. So will still be shedding by Burns Night (25 January).
But the majority of leaves don’t go to waste. I have a brilliant piece of kit called a Billy Goat. It’s a high powered, wheeled vacuum cleaner that picks up and shreds leaves. I carefully gather the beech leaves and empty them from the BG into comestible bags. These are stored within a wire frame to rot down. The rest are spread under our hedge of lime, holly and oak trees. The pheasant love this natural douvet and we often find them hunkered down in little scrapes of leaves. I suppose it keeps them warm.
Whilst the leaves are all fully recycles, we cannot make that claim for Christmas wrapping paper. Mrs GG insists that we open presents carefully so she can keep the paper for next year. But not everyone is so environmentally minded. I read online – so its probably not true – that we Brits will use 227,000 miles of the stuff this Christmas. I just wonder how much of that goes into landfill and the impact that has on global warming. We’ve got to think seriously about such an abominable waste.
Just one final thought about Christmas cards. One I received has a delightful photograph of a red squirrel eating a nut in snow. It is produced by the charity the Red Squirrel Survival Trust and the illustration is entitled A Winter’s Treat. My goodness it was a treat. I remember my father home on leave after the war taking me down to our local park to see the reds. They’re not there now but, thankfully, still remain in isolated pockets in England and Wales and more widely in Scotland.
Happy Christmas and stay safe
Happy Gardening!
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