Swansong

I decided this morning that the Christmas decorations were coming down. I'm not superstitious, and therefore I've never been wedded to the Twelfth Night tradition - I just take them down when I've had enough of them. On at least one occasion they didn't even make it to New Year, but this year was a special Christmas, and I knew I'd be sorry to see them go. Better that though than start to hate them - and by now it's only eleven months till we'll be putting them back up again - so down they came, and by dinner time the house was restored to normality.

It was a strange day, weather-wise, and what with that and stripping the decorations I knew I'd be lucky even to get out into the garden for a photo. So I took half an hour over a cup of coffee, and used the Christmas tree one final time for this season, to create bokeh behind a Christmas cactus flower. I can't say that I'm entirely wedded to this, not least because I don't think the colours work all that well, but it is at least seasonal.