Relieved from any outside garden work, I look at the rolling mists that float with a certain mystery in front of the hills, and it is beautiful in a wet, damp kind of way.  It’s a great time to do some inside jobs, have a general tidy-up, organise the drying room, and ensure all the records are in order. Think about spring, which will come soon enough!

A great winter activity is the processing of the last of the autumn harvest – hawthorn berries.

I found a hedge that had the plumpest berries I had ever seen, all the leaves had blown off, so I just had to clip off generous bunches of dark red berries into my basket.

The berry of the Hawthorn tree has a long-standing medicinal tradition as a heart tonic. The dark red plant pigment of these berries is due to the abundance of Proanthocyanidins. These compounds have an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect to improve heart blood flow and a general healthy influence on all the capillaries of the body.

The blossoms and leaves of the Hawthorn tree are collected in spring and used together with the berries for general circulation improvement.