When Hoarding is Not a Bad Thing

Dear ancestors, Why did you hoard all this stuff? Bunch of sneaks. How did you squirrel it away upstairs? The letters, diaries, and tiny brown photos of strangers whimper when you open a drawer. ‘Don’t throw us out, we made it this far, we might be special’. The scrapbook at the back is silent. Who put it there? What’s in it?

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How to make a Christmas Crib

The Ancestors were keen on Cribs. A special birth was re-created in a new setting every Christmas, and the decoration box here is littered with scratched and dented remnants of those scenes. It was kind of them to leave us with all this stuff.

It is easy to make a crib if you have a few basic things, feel free to improvise and add in your favourite items.

Cow in a Crib

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The Best Kinds of Foraging

Advent Sunday. A day to light a candle, and think about shopping. Exeter this week was full of city noise, bus fumes, and Black Friday frenzy. I went there to meet someone, not shop, so it was easy to despise everybody else for being too consumerist, but then I had to hang around waiting, and that changed.

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When Babies are Born. What Happens Next?

Lily of the valley, the birth flower for anybody born in May. We celebrated my son’s milestone birthday this week, with a beach walk, chips in the rain, and a bit of baby nostalgia from me. Meanwhile, my phone was filling up with other babies. Two friends have become first-time parents and are about to discover what a game-changer they are.

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Discovering Links to the Past

In Aboriginal culture, the eucalyptus is a reminder of our interconnection with nature and the importance of links to past and future generations. This tree was planted to provide gentle shade, with a hint of rain forest. All we got was a spindly stick that thrashes about in gales. It became a reminder of ‘potential damage to a roof’. So we chopped it in half.

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February Jobs in The Garden

The east winds are biting and the crocuses bite back, stubbornly forcing their way up through frozen earth. Crocuses symbolize a Brighter Tomorrow, which means planning. Time to think about February jobs in the garden.

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