Thank goodnes it's over

Time to take the Christmas decorations down, a very quick job for me as I only had this tree decoration that I made, and a few coloured lights along the window sill. I had a very frugal Christmas, in fact I didn't really do Christmas at all. The frenzy of shopping, wracking your brains wondering what presents to get, eating loads of food and drinking yourself silly, not much fun I think. Oh dear, makes me sound like a grumpy old woman, but I visited family on Christmas Day, that was nice, and I had my treats, a bottle of Port and some chocs.

My tree has been stripped of it's leaves and berries and put away for next year. I made it out of twigs I had in the garden, cut them to size and nailed them together. The base is an empty tin filled with cat litter, some coloured paper sellotaped around it and foliage attached with elastic bands. I think my free hand made tree is better than anything you can buy in a shop.

There are lots of things you can make for no money, if you look around the hedgerows. I made this autumn display with foliage I picked from around the fishing pond when I was walking Ben, in October. It is so satisfying to make things from scratch, even better if you have recycled something that would have been thrown away. It makes me think about what people did before High Street shops, and wouldn't it be great to get back to basics and make things again. The way things are going at the moment, with the threat of people losing their jobs and shops closing, we might have to. Then all the past skills that our grandparents used to have will once again be resurected.