A beautiful sunny day, so Caroline and I set off for the Haresfield topograph (next hill along from Haresfield Beacon). We take the ‘low road’ across the fields to start with, planning to return via the ‘high road’ through Standish Woods. This gives a rare opportunity to view (and photograph) the splendid old specimen oaks of Standish Park Estate in low winter sun. There are lots of these ancient stag-headed trees, mostly in field centres […]

The fields are wet and muddy, as is the lower part of the ascent – one step forward and half a step back through the steep sheep pasture. But I speed up as I can see a group of hawthorns with Mistletoe just on the edge of the enclosed area. This low winter light is wonderful for mistletoe and I want to get there before the sun drops too much. This is a typical small […]

I take a few pictures into the sun, against the sky and with the sun on the berries and then it’s off to the topograph, where we find the world and his wife, plus dogs, children etc, ‘cos if you’re lazy you can simply drive to here. We pause briefly but there’re too many people here – so we walk on rapidly, through the woods and back down through the hospital at dusk Haresfield topograph […]

Spent Christmas Day (and much of Boxing Day) wearing a Kiss Me hat with plastic mistletoe dangling over it. I thought it was rather fetching, and it did keep my head warm, but not everyone was so keen. I’ll post a picture when Mary (my sister) has emailed one to me…

Christmas Eve at last – and I can be sure that after tonight mistletoe queries will reduce dramatically – not that I don’t welcome them, but it’s always a relief to have a break after a mistletoe-filled November and December. It’s not just me, Caroline agrees with this as well (probably more so). The mistletoe madness starts today at 0730 hours, with the postman delivering a large box. Still in bed, and with the house-alarm […]

Hey hey! Am in the Guardian again already! Well, almost; the blog has a link from the Guardian blog site (if it’s gone from there already try the blog archive). And the blog has been blogged about on Jane Perrone’s horticultural blog . I’m beginning to feel a part of the blogging community – but am also slightly embarrassed as my main site is looking tired and out-of-date and all these new visitors might notice. […]

Yesterday I made another attempt to acquire some decent mistletoe art nouveau material. This is a common occurrence for me, and usually ends in failure, though I have had minor successes. Yesterday’s episode (between returning from the druids and going to church) was typical. I bid for some Lachenal crockery that was up for auction on Ebay. Now ‘crockery’ is a bit rude, but that was effectively what it was advertised as being – as […]

These are the items I won – the Lachenal platter and saucebowl And, I’ve just heard from the seller that she’s adding a third, unadvertised, matching plate to my package. So thank you Marie-Claude!

Later activities today contrasted strongly with the druid weekend. The first was seasonal mistletoe harvesting from an apple tree in my mother’s garden at Painswick. We decided to prune quite a lot off, as this tree is becoming overgrown with mistletoe, and needs some respite. So a lot of gifts for the neighbours. And all of this was just cut with secateurs and allowed to fall on the ground. After yesterday’s activity this almost seemed […]

Sunday am, back in the Forest. This morning the main task was to distribute the mistletoe amongst the groups present, and discuss the way forward. Again I’ll give no details here – suffice to say that the mistletoe, still suspended from the ground was divided up, including some to me. And there was much discussion over destinations, sacred places and possible seeding in sacred groves. More on that as and when it happens next spring […]