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Well that didn't last long. Wordle 1,289 X/6 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩

Endangered mountain trees making a comeback in Scotland, study shows | About | University of Stirling WWW.STIR.AC.UK Endangered mountain trees and shrubs are making a comeback in Scotland, a study has shown.

This reminded me of something @Doug Tait spotted a few weeks back

A couple from the edge of Dartmoor. Ever the opportunists.

Wordle 1,287 3/6 🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Two days of X's and then two days of 3's. How very consistent.

Not a face but ..........?

Easter Island tree?

I've not reached that level quite yet, but I do find with each year that I'm tending towards that sentiment. I love the family time and time off work, but I hate the massive overconsumption and waste that comes with Christmas now. (Last minute shopping the day before Xmas eve has scarred me for life I think, so depressing). I'd be happy if there was just a couple of special meals and that was it, no presents, no massive hype.

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I'll kick us off. Christmas opens with stockings for the tinkers. Then a normal breakfast followed by some preparation work for the meal, veg peeling and stuffing making. Then it's a short cycle, or drive for some, to the pub. Once there the objective is to get as many pints in as time/family/bar que length allows, 2 or 3 normally. A slightly wobbly ride home and it's time for the main present carnage. Dinner is towards the end of the afternoon following an intense period of family squabbling, too many cooks in the kitchen and all that. Dinner is chickens rather than turkey. The evening is a bloated blur of TV and board games punctuated by a cheese and port supper, depending on bloat status. Boxing Day is similar in terms of venue and participants, but a shorter affair, starting in the afternoon after a walk or another cycle. Ham and a leg of lamb are the main events on the table this time. The challenge is to try to keep the children away from any kind of screens for as long as possible and try to make them play with all the toys they unpacked in about 30 seconds the day before!

I thought it might be interesting to see what everyone else does in the way of family traditions or routines over the festive season, well, two days. Ours is fairly mundane, anyone do anything unusual or even better, outrageous?

Aye, chillies. Thin Jim type specimens.

Ham aux trucs.

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Happy Christmas one and all. Eat much, drink plenty and be merry! So the potato peeler: probably the most used tool today.

Wordle 1,284 X/6 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩 🟨🟩⬜🟩🟩 Well, it wasn't for me..

Sorry Dave mate, I forgot to add this for you. Fill ya boots with a whole link rather than just a LinkedIn screenshot. Spiralling deer population 'devastating' UK nature - prompting calls to reintroduce wolves and lynx NEWS.SKY.COM New footage reveals the growing scale of the country's deer population - and while the animals generally enjoy a positive... Guessing you wouldn't be in favour of wolves and lynx, so culling for the dinner plate it is then.

Pinus scaffoldicus is a great choice for cheap woodworking projects. I've used it for heavy duty book shelves a couple of times.

No. Read all the words.

I completely agree with you about the Halal thing. It's a barbaric practice that should be stopped hencefourth. It's a load of bollox like most of all the major religions. Top marks for managing to bring the anti-muslim sentiment into the discussion though. 👍 Mind you, as bad as Halal is, it's only the culmination of a tragic journey from an animal welfare point of view. Closing all the small local abattoirs so that animals have to be driven all over the country, crammed into the back of lorries makes no sense to me. That happens to most animals, regardless of whether or not they're destined to be eaten by Muslims. Yes, the explosion in the deer population is wreaking havoc with nature in the UK. I'm not an ecologist but that's what I've read. Seen a few stories on here too, about the damage to trees and the wider landscape caused by deer and grey squirrels, (I suggest we cull them to stock the meat shelves with too). Check it on the Truth Machine if you don't believe me. You almost got it that time, but not quite. I wasn't talking only about the 350000 deer that are currently taken. I meant all of, (or as many as possible), of the excess population that we've currently got. So, maybe 1M. Considering that we've got 1.5 - 2M now, up from 450000 in the 70's. Make intensively farmed meat expensive, as it should be, and people's tastes will soon change.

I'd favour going hardline on it, just to force the idea through. If conventional farmed meats were to get too expensive then the Bambis and Fluffy Bunnies will get increasingly more appetising. This'll be controversial but I'd make the whole thing a state driven enterprise. If we were ever to get a government with some balls to implement a nationwide culling campaign.