20th December -Deck the Hovel

Apologies for yesterday's no-show.  My parents have been away visiting relatives so I have been playing shepherd. Only one ewe lambed on my watch, giving birth to a healthy single without incident, which is exactly the way I like it! Lambing always reminds me of my childhood when, during spring half-term, it was my job to look after the expectant ewes and new arrivals whilst my parents were at work. I haven't had cause to actually put my hand in a ewe and help with an awkward birth for years but I’d still feel confident if I had to do it - it's one of those skills you just don't forget! The process of interpreting what your fingertips are touching and using the information to create a mental image of the problem deep inside the ewe, must fire up all sorts of neural pathways and my recollections of tackling breech presentation, legs back, heads back, three feet and one head etc remain exceptionally vivid.

G changing broken bulbs on his first Christmas

We don't have a hall to deck with evergreens but Em works hard to pack as much of the surrounding woodland as possible into our small dwelling. Holly berries, though not abundant are not as scarce as most years and I managed to find a couple of well endowed boughs whilst out checking the non-lambing contingent of my parents' flock. The hardest part of my annual foliage collection ( save for the violent barracking meted out by the wife when I bring home the wrong Christmas tree) is the painstaking process of peeling creeping ivy from tree trunks. There is a beam which spans the width of our Rayburn room and Em likes to cover this with a single length of ivy - in a couple more years there won't be an unmolested plant in the whole wood, as the evergreen creeper is so brittle that at least half my attempts result in failure. Still I managed to find a suitable length eventually and after working late into the night Em has adorned the cottage with holly wreaths, a twinkling Christmas tree, hanging bouquets and of course a bushy length of twisting ivy. I'm a grumpy old bugger at heart and probably wouldn't bother with decorations if it fell to me but I'm glad to be forced out of myself at times which is the beauty of sharing a life with someone completely different from oneself. She does have, it must be said exquisite taste in all things decorative and adorning (though I am loathed to admit it, after she accused my taste of being on par with a wombat) and I must confess to feeling a welling up of pleasure and emotion on seeing the finished effect and a lifting of the spirits to a level which might even be considered festive!