Merry Christmas

How did this time of year come round again? Unlike many people I am not a terribly christmasy person, I wasn't designed for parties and am too keen on maintaining some kind of waistline for all the food.  I was actually on a christmas night out on Saturday and was in a club thinking, why am I not at home in my pyjamas?!  But the good news is the winter solstice passed on Sunday so I do see this point in the year as a corner and now we are moving back towards lighter evenings and nicer weather.  I can not wait.  I hate getting back from work in the evenings and spending all night cooped up indoors like a caged animal, faced pressed to the window glass, desperate to be out amongst marrows.  Not that I have marrows.
However, I will rally and have a glass of something nice on the day.  I thought I would share with you a christmas tree, a real one this time not one made of dogwood, but not just any christmas tree.  Behold, the biggest living decorated tree in the UK:

35 metres of light, so pretty in the dark, excuse the quality I couldn't get it any clearer
 because of the lack of light and I wasn't enjoying the threat of being run over

A giant redwood standing 35 metres tall is decorated from a cherrypicker with 1800 lights for the whole christmas season.  It stands tall and bright light a beacon across the fields and is visible from the nearby road.  Pilots flying into the nearby airport can even see it from the air and use it to help guide them in. Im lucky enough to get to see it quite often and its always impressive.  I thought it would be nice to get a picture to show you, but the problem is Wakehurst Place, the location of this tree is shut by the time its dark and I get out of work so I had to try and take it from the road.  As usual, there was me, hastily parked up and stumbling up a steep grass verge in the dark to get my picture.
Unfortunately the tree is not as impressive in pictures as it is in real life because it is difficult to grasp the scale of it, but you can see a few other trees in the foreground to give you some idea, and Im about 100 metres away, it would take a good 7 minutes to walk to the tree so that shows you the size.
Anyway I wish all my readers a very merry christmas, I hope yours is full of joy, and probably plenty of food.  Now bring on spring so I can post nice pretty pictures again rather than bulbs!