Ogham Tree Alphabet November 25th to the Solstice and Saturday Fail

 The tree I've not mentioned with regard to The Ogham Tree Alphabet is the Elder. If you've not come across the Ogham Tree Alphabet then this below is from my first post about it in 2020 explaining what it is.

The Ogham Alphabet is the only native British writing system devised over 2,000 years ago and carved using notches onto wood or stone.
I had heard of this way of writing from the Sister Fidelma Books by Peter Tremayne -the first few of these I read years ago before they became very repetitive.

It turns out that in the Ogham Alphabet each letter is also a tree and a number and part of the calendar or actually the other way round..........each tree is a letter and number and a month or day of the year.
Karen Cater (Author of this book below)

set out to find, in her local area, each tree of the calendar, illustrate them all and find out more about the history, traditions and folklore surrounding the trees.

I have been taking photos of the trees in the book and writing about the Alphabet off and on since 2020 but although I've written about Elder trees I've not shown the Elder photo and relevance from the book for this period of the year. 

Rather than re-write about all the wonderful properties of Elder and the way it keeps away witches! here is a link to all the posts that I've written about it over the last 6 years

Sadly there are very few Elder trees around the village and the one over the road at the edge of the burial ground has been 'tidied' by the Community Payback team(people doing Community Service instead of prison) who have been working there every Saturday morning with their strimmers and mowers for the last two years ...driving me crazy and ruining the habitat for many creatures in the process!

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 Saturday's visits to Christmas Fayres cost me nothing except diesel and 1 hour of wasted time! I started at one that opened at 10am in Eye where I could also pop in the library to return a couple of books that had people waiting. There were a few stalls in the Town Hall but nothing very exciting. Then I went home via two villages where I should have found 3 sales - in the first village the fayre must have been cancelled, in the second village I looked round quickly hoping to get a jar of Lemon and Lime marmalade from a local producer but they didn't have any and their second sale didn't start until much later - I must have misread their times.

I was soon home again out of the windy weather!

Back Soon

Sue

Low Spend November Update and Other Stuff

 I reckon this is the only way to buy Brussel Sprouts - any that have been picked and bagged and transported miles are already old.

Got these from outside a house in the village that sometimes  has a few veg things out for sale with an honesty box. I'd walked up to the pub next door to put  a couple of jars in the bottle bank  and had to go home and get some cash when I saw the sprouts. £1.50 and I'll keep them outside, they'll be good for a few weeks.

At last a proper Yellow Sticker bargain from Asda, where butter has just gone up to £2 for 250g (what used to be ½ lb) and  up to £1.89 at Aldi. So when I spotted some 500g packs at the back of their reduced chiller cabinet  for £2.13, I grabbed 4 packs. The odd thing is that I've never seen butter in 500g packs anywhere around here before.

The home-grown tomatoes from the freezer, 3 red peppers and 2 red chilli's and all the other bits made 7 jars of my favourite red chutney/relish. A few will be given away and the rest will last me until next year. I completely forgot to get red onions so had to use ordinary which has spoiled the red-ness - but not the taste.

How's Low spend November going at the end of the third week?

Brought forward £331.75

Last Saturday Christmas Fairs £2.50 + £2.50 jigsaw (all for charity)

Rest of the weeks spending including the Brussel Sprout stalk + Keep Moving Group +Toothpaste + New Jar Lids + Food  from Asda and Aldi including the 2kg of bargain butter and red and chili peppers for the Red Relish    =    £54.30

So to carry forward  £391.05. Diesel to buy for the car and electric meter reading to ring in and then pay for this coming week and I shall ring and order 500litres of heating oil very soon.

Low spend November might suffer a setback because guess how many Christmas Fayres there are this weekend - all within about 10 miles .................................................................................... 

4 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday.................. and these are only the ones I know about! I won't be visiting them all!

Thanks to everyone who's read the blog through another week ......Hope you all have a good weekend.

Back Monday

Sue

Using It Up

I've gradually been using up my stash of card making materials . I just don't enjoy it anymore and life's too short!

Last week I got the few remaining sheets of Christmas  3D Decoupage sheets and card blanks out onto the table to turn into cards for this year....I've got enough that I bought from charity shops in the January sales in the drawer already, but the cards made will mean I don't need to buy many in 2025 sales.

16 Christmas cards made, pity 3D never shows up in photos.

 

There are  some birthday decoupage sheets that needed using too. That's a job for today after I've walked up the road for tree photos (weather permitting) and made some sort of cakes for the weekend.

Back Tomorrow

Sue