Christmas cards

I haven't sent Christmas cards for a number of years. My husband and I have sort of opted out of Christmas. This year, however, I decided to send a few hand-painted Christmas cards. My first attempts were done using those purpose-made watercolour cards. I was so worried about ruining them, however, that I didn't enjoy it and ended up not liking the results much. So they went in the bin.

I decided to just start painting some small card-sized paintings on larger pieces of ordinary watercolour paper, not worrying about how they turned out, so I could just use the ones I liked. This was a lot more fun! Here are the results. I like some more than others, and I didn't use all of them. I had fun doing it though, and it was nice to be able to put something of myself into the cards I sent to family members.

From the photo "Coal tit - Switzerland" by crackers93

From the photo "Great Tit (Parus major)" by Max xx

From a photo by mustcreate in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From a photo by lisilk in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From a photo by PETERH in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From a photo by Dilettante Dave in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From the photo "Robin" by thetelf

From a photo by Ceiliog in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From a photo by Yorky in the Wetcanvas.com reference image library

From my imagination :-)

A garden for birds

Over the last couple of years my husband and I have tried to make our tiny little garden a bit of a haven for wildlife, especially birds. Here is the state of it currently.

That's my view out the kitchen window. It makes doing the washing up a lot more fun as I watch the birds come and go. In a typical morning I'll see goldfinches, chaffinches, maybe a greenfinch or two, blue tits, great tits, sparrows, magpies, blackbirds, collared doves, wood pigeons, and my favourite, the robin.

Robbie the robin has been visiting the garden for a couple of years for the live mealworms we supply. He has his own private supply that larger birds cannot get to. If his dish is empty he'll come to the top of the little shed next to the kitchen window to see if I'm in there. A couple of times last year he actually flew into the kitchen through the open door.

Below is a young robin that we think is probably one of Robbie's offspring, raised on the mealworms provided by us!

We also feed the hedgehogs, and enjoy sitting in the garden on summer evenings after dark watching them squeeze under the garden gate and make a beeline for the hedgehog food. Haven't had the time to do that much this year but last year one night we saw SIX hedgehogs in the garden at one time. During the day the magpies eat the leftover hedgehog food (it's dry food, called Spike's Dinner).

The young magpie above is trying to work up the nerve to duck under the cover to steal some hedgehog food.