The period between Christmas and new year is a funny one; as a freelancer, you never really feel like you’re on holiday, but it’s definitely nice to be able to sack off the school run and sit at your desk in your pyjamas. I always find it kind of hard to balance doing fun things with the kiddos and working, but this year we managed to squeeze in a few fun things; trips to the park, board games and one massive, epic walk where we collected loads of lovely berries, dried seed heads, pine foliage and some deliciously fluffy Old Man’s Beard . And where the kiddos walked home with a branch that was easily 2m long – I’m envisioning some sort of super-sized wallhanging….. It was probably my favourite afternoon, everyone was getting involved and we walked for ages; wandering past cottages and farmers fields, tramping through mud and not worrying about the time, getting home to find that not only had I locked us out, but I’d also left my keys in the lock on the inside of the door…
We found some really good stuff; loads of berries (all round and perfect looking, not even squashed ones!), dried seed heads, the tiniest pine cones, a beautiful dried fern, lovely trailing ivy and loads of pine branches that had grown over peoples walls. Making the garland itself was really easy; you just lay everything out on a table or the floor and then tie it all to a length of string – Daisy and I sat down to do it the day after we collected everything, and spent a good hour trimming and tying it all up. Then we hung it up from the shelf above the sofa, lit the candles and sat back to admire our work. Job done!
