West Coast Christmas Tree!

When you think of a Christmas tree, I am sure that this is the kind of thing that appears in your mind.

A beautifully decorated tree! (Thanks to Google)

It's certainly the type of tree that I grew up with. Dad brought a small tree home every year just before Christmas Day. We stood it in a bucket with soil to weigh it down and spent ages decorating it, hanging those delicate glass balls on the spiky needles (and hoping not to drop one), and festooning it with tinsel and the odd things that we had made at school, tiny paper chains and lopsided angels! Soon after Christmas the poor tree started dropping it's needles and mum would spend ages sweeping up the mess, until it was thrown out on 12th night! We never considered having a pretend tree and I wonder whether they were available in the early 1950's. One of the saddest sights to my seven year old mind, was the naked tree lying outside the back door waiting to be put on the next bonfire, and my dad saying to me 'Well, Christmas is as far away as it can be now!' A whole year to wait till the next one!


And here it comes again! But with every passing year it feels less and less like Christmas, especially with my family being so far away, so I haul out my little wooden tree and make an effort with a couple of baubles and the odd candle or two. Not very festive, but it's the thought that counts!

Look carefully, they are there!

Now, this brings me to the whole point of the story! We are very windy and very dry here over this period, and every now and then we put the spray on to keep the garden alive. Last week we had it on the back garden area and within minutes the birds had found the water and were bathing and preening and flapping with joy! There were starlings, tiny white eyes, sun birds, bulbuls, weavers and sparrows. And they were all sitting on the tree aloe, along every leaf. (Do aloes have leaves?)

And do you see what I saw?

A West Coast Christmas Tree!