Muted

Yesterday afternoon the Grafton Girls gathered again, after Covid forced us to abandon our annual get-together in 2020. As ever there was a good variety of cakes, accompanied rather decadently by mulled wine. It was lovely to catch up with several neighbours that I rarely see.

I left relatively early as Ben and Sarah had arranged to come round and help decorate the Christmas tree. Chris and Lizzy joined us a bit later on (though I'd actually already seen Chris in the morning for a while) and it all felt quite festive - drinking wine, listening to Christmas music and making arrangements for the next couple of weeks (Covid permitting!)

Today I was glad of a bit of quiet time. An afternoon visit to Swaddywell was rather badly timed - after several hours of fairly sunny weather I arrived at exactly the same time as a huge grey cloud. Consequently the vegetation was rather muted, with only the odd splash of color from rose and bramble leaves and some remaining golden willows. I rather liked the subtlety of this mix of grasses and teasel, which has been somewhat processed!