Festive wreaths

I. Am. Freezing.

So I have come inside to sit in front of the fire and warm up. It’s deep winter weather here on the mountain top. Sunny, but freezing. And it was so cold that my dahlias which live in pots were frozen in the potting shed.

So after an hour of hacking away at the frozen compost I managed to release five of them to give away to my friend Caroline.

And the rest can sit until they defrost a bit more and I can get them in the ground.

The Creature was in her new favourite spot with me in the shed. But she had very little interest watching someone lever out strange Dahlia corms with a trowel (and a bit of swearing). She has a new spot for the next two weeks.

I took pity on her and brought up our esky and lined it with all sort of soft furnishings.

The nice thing about taming a feral cat is she has low expectations of comfort. The potting shed is her permanent home in the garden. And as long as I bring her little delights like rugs and old fleeces, she has no designs on the houses. Poor thing, if only she knew that roaring fires and toasty homes existed… still.

What she doesn’t know she won’t miss.

And speaking of misses… I missed posting this Christmas wreath story on the appropriate day. I could retrofit the post and call it December 25, but really, that would be cheating.

A few years ago I bought this book. And it sat on the ‘must read’ pile until just last week. I was particularly struck by their idea of using what they call ‘plant vine’ to make their basic circles for the wreaths. “You can use any type of plant vine, these include clematis, grape vine, wisteria and honeysuckle.”

Well. I have quite a surfeit of most of those. I pass a whole jungle of wild clematis vine every day.

It’s the wilderness just below our letterbox on the main road. And I decided to do a spot of looting.

The thick ones look like you could swing off them. But I didn’t think they would be able to make a fetching circle for what I had in mind.

So I cut some of the thinner ones and set to work.

On my first ever wreaths. Ever. Shameful to reach almost 60 and never have mastered this craft. I was rather surprised how simple the job turned out to be.

Ivy. Yew. Amazing blue berries from the Viburnum Tinus shrubs. And some dried orange slices which have been in the Christmas decoration box for a few years now and getting dusty.

I added in a few flowering rosemaries for the wreath for the front door.

And gave the rest away to friends.

And naturally I have promised myself that I will keep making larger wreaths throughout the year to hang on the front door.

It’s a very large door. And the poor first attempt wreath is rather small.

But so much fun. And satisfying to think that something in 2020 wasn’t an unmitigated disaster.