If there is one thing that I love more than anything else, it is to blow the cobwebs away with a walk in the woods and never is there a better time to do this than on Christmas Eve before the festivities proper start. Having checked online with what is and isn’t legal these days with regard to taking a little bit of greenery for my festive bouquets we set forth. I do love these woods, I’ve loved them since my eyes first cast sight of them which was probably knowing my parents at just a few months old.  I know them like the back of my hand and it is one place that I miss painfully when I am away.I felt the same surge of excitement and deep calm that I always feel as I enter, the feeling of coming home but not knowing quite what I will discover. Hubby and I walked through the woods until we came upon the old railway track going to Balsall Common, well you have to imagine the sleepers and rails, long since lifted. We used to play fabulous games of Cowboys and Indians  running in and out of the woods and pretend to hear the trains coming by listening for the vibrations on the rail by pressing an ear to the track,  safe in the knowledge it had been decommissioned by Dr Beeching in the early sixties. Now it is a Greenway which to be honest isn’t as much fun as you have to watch out for cyclists whipping past you at 30 mph.We collect a few logs that have been torn from the trees in high winds, they were lovely to watch on Christmas Day, crackling and hissing on top of the hot coals. And a few bits of greenery to bring winter green into our home.And I breathe the deep, deep green, so fresh country air. I can’t wait to try this walk out another day, it looks amazing. And after picking laurel, berries and rosehips from the garden to mix in with a few roses,I made two lovely displays which reminded us of the woods and our wonderful five mile hike on Christmas Eve.