Advent again

A couple of days I blipped about our foraging walk in the hills outside Dunoon when we were collecting greenery for our Advent wreath, so I thought it proper to show the fruits of our labours, which we completed this morning in the freezing church. We had a bit of a hunt for the purple berries, as the shrub they come from, cunningly placed between Rectory and church, has been rather overcome with brambles. We shall attack them in the spring. This year we added a few pine cones for good measure ...

I've mentioned the exuberant nature of our Advent wreath before; it grew from an idea I had about 30 years ago, when the then incumbent introduced the idea to our church and bought the iron stand with its detachable ring of four candle-holders. That year, it was left bare with just the candles on their own, and I sat in the choir (we had a choir in these days) and thought how it was crying out for some greenery. The following year I asked if he'd mind if I did something about it, and found myself scrabbling around in my long mac over my decent I've-just-come-from-school clothes and a pair of wellies looking for suitable branches in the Bishop's Glen. I did it alone in the empty church as darkness fell, and made it up as I went along. Since then, it's just ... grown.

Extra photo of the church taken from the path to the Bishop's Glen road - I went for a walk to restore circulation after we'd finished.