A RESCUE CHRISTMAS TREE

It is the last day of November and it is Sunday.  It has been bitterly cold this week but I am staying warm inside the house. It is called 'hibernating'.

But today is the day to get out the lights and Advent candles and put them in the windows.  It gets dark earlier and earlier now. I am in the habit of turning them on both evening and early morning... along with most of the neighbours whose windows are now showing both white and coloured lights.

The Wonky Christmas Tree

I have decided to start a new trend; it is called 'resuce Christmas trees'.  If there are 'rescue dogs and donkeys' why not trees?  The tree in the above photo, that's the thing on the left with the S bend, is a Western Red Cedar.  It was a reject from a community tree planting exercise back in May this year.  I brought it home and put it in a pot.  It has been sitting outside the kitchen window facing south and has done... not a lot.  Time to put it to use... I stuck some fir tree branches cut from my friend, Willie's 'plantation' (while he is up north on his boat)... into the pot.  Viola! One Christmas tree...needing some lights.... they will come next.

xxxx tree with lights goes here xxxxx

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I also hauled wood today.  The sun at noon was shining throwing its long shadows on the grass behind the woodshed in the adjacent park. 

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The Eskimo stone sculpture along with the stone seals are struggling in the iced over birth bath.

And so are the local birds...

EDINBURGH - NOT THE HIGH STREET

AUTUMN SOCIAL LIFE WITH SHADOWS

Milngavie Music Club's 2025-2026 season has started.  Our first concert was 2 weeks ago with Roderick Williams being the guest artiste along with the Carducci String Quartet.

TIME TO RE-GROUP - ALASTAIR'S OFF TO UNI; ISHBEL GETS HER KEYS

It is now young Alastair's turn to leave home. He's 17 years old.  (They start school in Scotland at 5 years old.)  He has been accepted to study medicine at St Andrew's University which is in the north-east of Scotland.  

This is a country with many institutions for tertiary education: universities, colleges, The Conservatoire (music and drama in Glasgow), technical institutions, agricultural colleges etc etc.  I know he'll find St Andrew's a good fit; it's a university town with bookshops and an interesting history. It's one of the earliest universities established in the UK.  Alastair is interested in history and is a great reader.)

Time of head off!  As Iain used to say, "The best view is looking back!"

 Outside his dormitory door with young Ellie (10.5 in her last year of Primary School)

And things just keep getting better...Ishbel (18 3/4 yrs) now has her own flat.  She is going into her second year at Stirling University to be a Paramedic.  Here she is with her keys outside her new abode which is located in 'downtown' Stirling.

Harriet(12)  in June with her tea-bag hat.  She started her first year of high school last week.

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It is so good to follow their movements as they head off into their new lives. It certainly reminds me of heading off at roughly that age.  Yes, there were a few differences: I had a car; I had only one university to go to and it was a day's drive away in the big city of Vancouver.  I lived in dorms for the first year which I greatly loved and remember the joy of making new friends many of which I kept all my life.

However, sadly, some of these people are no longer with us.  Indeed, this is now a fact of life at my great age of 81 years. Folk are suffering from dementia (or their spouses are), some are undergoing cancer treatment; some, sadly, have died.  

Keeping up on the lives of the grandchildren certainly helps offset these sadnesses around me at the moment (like buses, everything seems to come along at the same time).  Luckily I inherited my mother's method of offsetting such times by keeping busy. She was a great one for 'kitchen therapy' i.e pull out the baking tins.

To that end here is something from my 'test kitchen'...Hobnob biscuits from the Great British Bake Off episode this week. The recipe is under the photo.

Pru Leith's Recipe for Hob Nobs