Midwinter

Over the past few days we have enjoyed making some seasonal and edible gifts for friends and family. The kitchen has been smelling delicious with all the usual festive spices, cinnamon, cloves, ginger - all warming for this chilly and sometimes dreich time of year. Colin has done the preserving and baking and I have been wrapping the gifts with jolly ribbons and handcrafted labels - each of us working from our strengths. We hope our handmade gifts will give the special folk in our lives a little taste of what we love about living at The Lint Mill.

Despite the urgency engendered by rampant consumerism, traditionally midwinter is  a time to slow down and reflect on the triumphs and disasters of the year past and on our hopes for the year to come. So as we move from the solstice towards Christmas day, we always make some time to enact our own small ritual by making and burning our yule log. We find the biggest log from our logstore that will fit into our log burning stove, we decorate it with greenery and then spend some time writing little cards expressing our hopes for the coming year. We place the log on the stove and hope it burns 'til morning, symbolising warmth, protection and light. It's lovely to accompany this activity with a homemade tipple, preferably made from a hedgerow, and some of our favourite yuletide tunes.

Whatever the season brings for you, we hope that amidst the busyness, you can find time for your own quiet rituals, and to make space to listen to the song of the earth as we begin (in the northern hemisphere at least) to move inexorably towards the light.

Seasons greetings for our home to yours.