In the past week I've found myself in the Orange DIY store twice, which is pretty much unheard of. On the second visit I decided to reward myself for my patience and headed over to the poinsettias. Needless to say they were looking a little forlorn, but bagging these three for £1 each was a bit of a bargain. Later I discovered I'd got slightly more than I bargained for as one had been used to dispose of chewing gum, nice. No wonder they were looking rather sorry for themselves.
With some water - I don't think they'd been watered since October - and a bit of attention, they've perked up no end. So it seems this season's keep-the-poinsettia-alive challenge is underway. My record is early March, but we'll see how these three do.
They are beautiful though and I love the detail.
This year we seem to have a Christmas corner under our stairs. Our tree's there along with the poinsettias to its left and the twinkly lights threaded through the ironwork on the stairs.
It's a five foot tree as we really can't fit anything larger into that space, and it's quite bushy so it's doing a good job of filling the space available, even poking itself up through the stairs in places. I've trimmed some of the back branches so it's more snug - MOH was horrified I'd even thought about pruning it, but I can't be the only one that does this - am I?
This year I've shown some restraint on the decorations I've used too - that's code for I've not put them all on the tree and some have gone back into the wardrobe. My theme seems to be "jewelled colours" so the more traditional and wooden ornaments didn't make it. It did mean though that these ornate elephants, which we brought back from our honeymoon in India have got an outing. I've adapted them so they can be used on the tree.
But why is it that one decoration always tries to escape during the first night on the tree...
I'm pleased with the tree which is from our local green grocers. It's the first time we've bought one from there, and the advantage was we didn't have to try and stuff it into a Clio. MOH got to do the manly thing of carrying the tree back from the local shops too.
Go on, have a smell...
I've gone a bit wreath mad this year - here's the second one that I made which is hanging in our kitchen. Those chillies and I almost fell out.
And some shots of the wreaths I already had.
So that's four wreaths including the one I made last week which is hanging on our front door. Thankfully I haven't lost any baubles...
I've still some more decorations to make and put up. My plan is to make some kind of garland from more holly from the garden and some of the pruned Christmas tree branches to decorate the dining room. I have to wait though as MOH is currently re-painting the radiator cover.
And look what else I've spotted. My ancient Christmas Cactus is in bud. Ancient because it's survived so long and must easily be ten years old, perhaps older. It's survived well and seems to like it in the conservatory. I've a dilemma though - do I move it into somewhere warmer to try and encourage it to flower more quickly. Or leave it where it's happy?
What would you do?