Christmas trees at the forest train station

By Delamere Forest is a vintage train station, still on a working line so you can get the train right into the heart of the grand fir trees, a place of natural beauty on my doorstep. The old station building is a cafe serving all sorts from hot chocolates to sandwiches and it's unbelievably cute with old signs and at this time of year even better for Christmas trees are sold here. 

Propped up against vintage red telephone boxes and old lampposts are all types of firs and pines. The beautiful fresh balsam scent of trees stacked by rusting signs and nostalgic adverts. Red ribboned wreaths and kissing boughs were being made whilst a little festive tune tinkled merrily in the cold air. We had hot chocolates with snowy whipped cream on top and walked around breathing Christmas in.

Leaf kicking

I'd been thinking about leaf kicking days and crisp air. I'd been thinking about how much my son loves crunching through those leaves with wellies and scooping armfuls up. So, that's what we did.

An autumn carpet, warm clothes and a dry day with all but that slight mist that seems to linger all day. Across the field of cows and through the woodland and along the pathways. Running and cheering and the nearby cows did not mind,  just carried on grazing and looking every so often from under the canopy of trees.

The wellies were making a debut, Star Wars ones for that is all that they had in his size but they look smart and kept little feet dry as they scudded and scampered in the amber heap of leaves. A time to do so for you can blink at this time of year and suddenly it is winter and sludge and bare trees. Today though, cold air biting, mushrooms springing up from logs and mellow happiness.

Damsons, sloes or a load of bullaces

 I'm still not actually sure if the purple fruit gathered on a dry evening's walk by the canal is damson, bullace or sloes....or maybe even an combination.  Sloes are the fruit of Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) and hang closer to the spiny branches and the leaf is a simple pinnate oval shape and serrated. The classic fruit for adding to gin or making a jelly with.

Bullace  (Prunus domestica subspecies insititia) is a plum, similar to damson but I think tarter and here it seems a little complex with many regional types of Bullace. Both it and Damsons are related to the domestic plum and can be used to make all sorts from pies to fruit preserves.
Whatever they are, (I'm opting for damsons) we gathered a small bag full of them. Reaching up into the trees laden with purple skinned beauties as the sun shone through. Harvest time.  I'm new to foraging and keen to learn more. There feels a homely nostalgia to picking these damsons, once more popular but now forgone for more profitable and easier to harvest plums. Similar to last year's bilberry picking adventure in heathland, it just feels so satisfying to be out gathering these out of favour fruits and I feel like I'm harking back to the 1940's and off to make jam.   Once home, they were washed and pricked with a cocktail stick and then placed in lovely glass jars with sugar and rum. Already the rum is now purple and will be hopefully the most delicious tipple I've ever had in my life on Christmas Day. And then the discarded damsons steeped in alcohol can become a stodgy, warming pudding in that lull winter period after the festivities.  

Early spring garden

The April garden was the start of my gardening attempts ramping up again. Plans made, seeds bought and renewed enthusiasm. The Amelanchier lamarckii (snowy mespilus) came into blossom in the second week looking gorgeous with white against bronze leaves, it's a lovely tree for a small garden and the birds like the late summer berries too.On the patio area is the mini greenhouse and the area where I do all my potting up and seed planting. In the summer  months the bench will become my favourite place for a cup of tea but for now it is some extra space for seed trays and pots. I've planted mostly everything now - well first succession anyway, broad beans, French climbing beans, pumpkins, squashes, courgettes and sunflowers. There are some onion sets there too and lavender plugs from a the 72 plugs I ordered of cottage garden plants. The rest are in my kitchen as the mini greenhouse seems to attract every slug and snail in the neighbourhood and I want all my plants to grow so the garden is filled with delphiniums, carnations and coreopsis. 
 I start moving plants around and creating new tubs of primroses. herbs and other plants I find lurking. I've been dividing perennials such as Lady's Mantle and moving strawberries. The strawberries from the allotment are to be dug up and moved into pots in the garden instead so I can keep a closer eye on them, at the allotment they simply get eaten by birds, slugs etc. A primula I moved into the potager style bed I'm creating. The terrier who wants to help but does little aside from trampling seedlings and plants or rolling in dead worms or slugs.
I have lots of plants reappear which is great and saves money so hopefully tubs should fill up nicely for a pretty look on the patio. I'll be buying plants throughout the season, adding to the collection but really I don't want to spend a lot at all. I usually pick extra plants up at Aldi as they are reasonably priced and it's nice to buy new plants on our travels, honesty stalls, farmer's markets and garden nurseries.  Of course Little Bird loves the garden too, he likes to sit on our rocking bench further down the garden by the honeysuckle, often standing on there to peep over into next door. We bought him a new water table to replace the one that broke, lots of scoops and pouring going on. Really need to tidy out his yellow play shed and find old favouites in there such as the red wagon and market stall. No doubt there will be plenty of spiders in there and mildew to wipe away. LB likes to enthusiastically water all my plants :)  April was a flurry of activity and May will be the same, more seeds to sow to replace any lost to slugs and plenty of potting up of my cottage garden plugs - some lost to damping off which is really annoying. The tiny bit of lawn needs re-turfing and the pathway relaying and I can't wait to compare to see how much everything has grown. This is my favourite view over the rooftops and mine and my neighbour's garden. Some gorgeous sunsets over the last few weeks and it's a great spot for cloud spotting. 

Arley Hall Christmas Trees

 Top of the list for this time of year is to walk around a grand estate for some festive scenery to really get into the Christmas mood. This is Arley Hall in Cheshire, just a few miles away from home and a charming red brick house to explore and its surrounding gardens. 

There was a lot to see from the floral displays to the gardens but here are the Christmas trees and the outdoor greenery. The old barn was filled with decorated trees from the local schools and you were given three coins to place in the boxes beside your favourite trees. Lovely to see how the children had decorated them. 

On the way out they were selling bundles of holly cut from the estate that I've decorated the house with so we are looking wonderfully pagan now.