This week, we are preparing to host an Open House for our lovely neighbours, so we need to get the house ready. And lots of cooking by Lisa was the order of the day.
The first priority was Christmas decorations. And this involved a really large Christmas tree. We went out to a farm near Wolf Mountain Vineyard who grow and sell fresh trees. When we arrived at Holly Tree Farm, we discovered that there was a choice of two sources – cut down your own, or purchase a ready felled tree shipped in from South Carolina – the Christmas Tree hub of the South East. Alas, there was not much stock of the latter option. But we were told that there was a new delivery of trees coming soon, and could we wait a bit. Given the rather relaxed rural attitude to timing, we thought that this meant “come back tomorrow, or even next week”. But no, a quick mobile call be the proprietor confirmed that she meant 15 minutes – the consignment was almost here. So we stayed and chatted, intending to get our pick of the next delivery. And sure enough, a truck and trailer with about 70 trees arrived shortly. We were able to select our choice – an 8 foot specimin (which was nearer 9 foot). We were offered delivery of the tree, but we were perfectly able to put it on the roofrack of Lisa’s car and carried off our prize.
Back home, the tree needed some preparation. To get maximum life out of it, we needed to cut a couple of inches off the bottom, and then shave the bark off the bottom nine inches to increase water uptake once it was in the house. And trim off the branches at the very bottom. Out came the electric chainsaw that I purchased a little while back for clearing fallen trees off the drive, etc. Not that it is big enough to cut up a mature tree, and I am frankly concerned at letting a chainsaw novice like yours truly loose with a big petrol driven model – the chainsaw massacre victim could be me! However, trimming up a Christmas tree ready for erecting in the sitting room was well within my scope. Though I say it myself, I think that I did a fairly tidy job, and the trimmed lower branches were subsequently turned into a decorative wreath for the front door. The tree then spent the night in a bucket of water (of which it drank most) before being manhandled into the sitting room for decoration.
My labours in sorting out packing cases paid big dividends – I had got all the boxes of Christmas stuff into one place and opened. Decorations and baubles which had been hidden for two years emerged into the daylight, were sorted and picked over, and carried upstairs to decorate the tree. Fairly restrained decor – mostly the tree, and a few other ornaments.
So, with the house prepared for Christmas, we needed a few visitors to admire our efforts. First will be our Open House on Sunday 14th. Come back soon and read all about it.