Sunday, 30 December 2012

Ice lantern

So that was Christmas sorted, have you got anything special lined up for New Years Eve? The Christmas holiday is a rather low-key thing in my house these days, but I do like to light up these darkest days of the year and make the Christmas and New Year period a bit special both indoors and outdoors. I made a couple of ice-lanterns the other day, and I thought I would share with you how to make these very easy, decorative lanterns as this is something you can do in minutes and freeze overnight. The result is pretty spectacular :-)

Thursday, 27 December 2012

The Norwegian Christmas tree

Living in London, UK, I often hear at this time of year about the famous Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, often referred to as “the tree given by the people in Norway to the people in London”. As a Norwegian, knowing the story behind the Christmas tree, I thought I would use the opportunity to tell who the gift is from, and why, since I don’t think that’s something widely known here in the UK, and certainly not around the rest of the world.

Sunday, 23 December 2012

Merry Christmas!

Are you celebrating Christmas Tuesday? Or are you celebrating tomorrow? Around the world, Christmas is celebrated in many different ways and at different times. I live in London, UK, and here, Christmas celebration takes place at 25th December, Christmas Day. I guess we all know the story why we have celebrated Christmas the last 1700 years or so, in one form or another, but it takes place in very different forms on different dates around the world. And in fact, Christmas as we know it is an amalgamation of many different celebrations which people in Europe have celebrated for thousands of years, long before the Bible was written.

Thursday, 20 December 2012

Gingerbread Houses

Have you ever made a gingerbread house? I used to make one every year when my son was a kid, and I used to make them when my sister, my brother and myself where kids too, but the last house I made was in 2002 and since then I haven’t been able to go ahead with projects that require that level of physical input.

Saturday, 15 December 2012

December bloomers

I took my photos for this Garden Bloggers’ Bloom day on Thursday and even before I opened the backdoor to my garden I could see it was cold outside. A quick look at the thermometer revealed a measly minus 1 Celsius, but with the sharp breeze it felt more like minus 10. We have had a cold spell the last week, with minus degrees every night and not many above zero during the day. Britain is freezing in weather like this, with un-insulated houses and many people with only single pane windows or poorly made double glazing windows. I struggle to keep warm in my house despite central heating and I am dreading my heating bill.

Friday, 7 December 2012

Plans for my corner

Once upon a time I had a nice Holly tree in my garden, it wasn’t that big when I moved in here 11 years ago, but Holly trees are relatively fast growers and mine was no exception. By this summer it had a healthy height of around 8 metres.