Stone Men And Winter Greenery

There is a chill in the air...

I have taken to wearing my hat and gloves.
At dusk here, the cottage windows glow, warm, welcoming with a twinkle of christmas. The skies have been clear and starry and the chimneys have smoky dragon tails of sweetest woodsmoke.

Shopping in Bath was icy and I felt as cold as the stone figures on Bath Abbey.

                                                                                                                    

In all the rush of Christmas they looked so still and wise and peaceful  gazing down from up high.

I'm always amazed by the detail on Bath Abbey and always have to stop and look. I adore the wooden door and even that looked cold too..

At least I was able to warm up with a mulled wine and lunch. Unlike the poor stone men.

Its been busy here with not much time for making wooden creatures or painting pictures. I've been stocking up on new supplies. Paints, canvas envelopes and other necessary bits and pieces and I had a bit of a rearrange of my desk and printer.
The house has almost finished being decorated. Just the holly, ivy and mistletoe to bring in now.

This holly is off of one of our own dear trees that is covered in berries every year. I picked it several weeks ago and it is in the greenhouse in a bucket of water. If I hadn't of picked it when I did, then I wouldn't have had any for Christmas decorating as the blackbirds and thrushes  have stripped the tree bare now.
The Ivy. Well there is plenty of that in the garden to pick.

The mistletoe. Oh how I would  LOVE to have growing on my apple tree! This beautiful bunch however I bought from the farm shop yesterday when we bought our Christmas tree.

Each year I try to get some mistletoe growing on the branches, but it has yet to work? Our apple tree branches are bare at this time of year. Just lichen.

This green man is keeping an eye on things in the garden, maybe I should get him to weave some magic over my mistletoe berries ;)

Hope everyone elses festive decorating is going well!?

And, I hear we may be in for snow this week!? I hope so!

P.S: Sorry about this large area in between the last picture and the comment place. I've just switched over to the new version of blogger and can't seem to get it? If anyone can tell me why I have this big annoying gap, please do? In the meantime excuse the odd things that may appear here and there while I get used to it! x
(Thankyou CJ It worked! :-) )