After the winds came snow, and then more wind, then rain, and then frost. This snowman was the first of a family of snow people my husband made for our grand-daughter.

Now we are getting ready for Christmas. We’ll be seeing all the children on Christmas Day, and then hopefully, going south for a family party in Chesterfield, and coming back for New Year.

Next year is time for big changes. On a mundane level, this computer, which has served me pretty well for five years, is now showing its age. It coughs and splutters whenever anything updates, and none of the new software is talking to any of the old stuff. It’s time to move on. So if there’s a bit of a lull over the next three weeks or so, you will know I am wrestling with Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010, and wondering just where I backed everything up.

In the garden, there won’t be too much upheaval, but I’ll be consolidating some of the changes I made last year, getting to understand the greenhouse and veg patch better, and adding some fruit bushes. I’m learning a bit mre about the birds in the garden, too, moving the bird feeders away from the flight path of the sparrowhawk, and creating nest-spaces for wrens – possibly my favourite garden bird. According to the fascinating A-B-Tree project run by Mandy Haggith at Cybercrofter, wrens like to nest in bramble thickets, because of the difficulty predators have in getting through the tangles. I can’t imagine I’ll get away with planting brambles in the garden, but we do have some very thorny and tangled wild roses, and this

juniper, just about as impenetrable as any small bird could want. You can see all the A-B-Tree posts here.

This year has been a hard one, with some problems coming to a head, some major milestones reached, some big changes made. Some people think that 2012 is going to be a year of major upheaval for the whole world, but apparently the Mayan prophecy is not meant to be about the end of time, but about the renewal of life. I wish all my friends, family and readers of this blog a happy Christmas holiday, and a peaceful time for renewal, refreshment and joy.