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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Early bright morning

I am ending November on my blog with a photo I took this morning, just before the sun was getting up – and just before I was getting back to bed again. I have had a 48 hour migraine coming and going and my body clock is thoroughly confused again, I try to sleep as much as I can when I have migraines like that, it’s the only thing to do.

Pink November garden

It was 15 degrees Celsius and a nice and warm day in my garden yesterday, I was out doing a bit of gardening and took the photos for this month’s Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day. Being middle of November and less than 6 weeks till Christmas, I can’t help thinking of those freezing cold and wet days we had in May and June – 15 degrees and a bit of sunshine would have been welcome back then! When I started looking at the photos I had taken yesterday evening I realised that all of them were pink – pink flowers on all the photos! I had not really noticed that when I walked around photographing, but getting them all up on my computer screen, I had my theme for today’s post :-)

Winter is looming

Living here in London, it’s not easy to say when winter actually starts. I grew up in Norway and I was 35 when I moved to London, up until then winter was defined by snow on the ground – around 5 months per year, usually from mid October to mid March, although it could snow as late as May. Here in London it rarely snows, some winters not at all, and if it snows it only lays for a few days and that’s it – according to my old definition, winter would come and go in less than a week....