Dead Weeds And Dancing

As I lay awake in the middle of the night, listening to gale force winds and waves of rain battering the bedroom window, I was positive everything in the hedgerows would be beaten to the ground and bedraggled.

Saturday was the night of the annual Christmas ceilidh and, as usual, it was my job to ’do the flowers’.  That meant a morning foraging in the hedgerows….which always sounds kind of idyllic - but isn’t when there’s driving sleet and the wind threatens to blow you off your feet.

Plants, however, are astonishingly resilient.  When I bundled up and braved the vile weather, I found the ivy flowers looking as beautiful as ever and the stems of red dogwood clean and straight.  The conifers were none the worse for wear (just as well ‘cause you’ve got to have those for seasonal scent).  And the dying weeds, being dry and stiff, had stood up to the night’s assault rather better than some of the fresher growth.

So dead weeds it was.  They and my other foraged finds were mixed with shop-bought roses and carnations; and together they watched the dancers whirl the night away.