A Waiting Game.

At this time of year the holly bushes at the back of the house are full of berries - this year more than ever (which might be, it is said, the sign of a hard winter to come). But there is a waiting game being played because between now and cutting the holly for the house at Christmas there are still several weeks in which the berries can be shaken off by a gale, or pecked off by hungry birds. So what I see today may not be what I can get when I come to cut it on Christmas Eve.