We’d been booked in for a wreath making workshop at Compton Verney this weekend – and the place was reached at 10.10am: in visitor reception there were cards, soap bars, dog treats, lots and lots of soft toys, and poo bingo sets – among a heck of a lot of other stuff ; and bright sun was shining as we walked up to the house.

A woman (early 60s) who seemed to recognise us was ticking peoples names off a list and asking if we wanted a mince pie; and the shop there had lots of jigsaws, and a recipe book titled ‘Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom’, another book called ‘Yoga for stiff birds’, and a packet of Greytones Charcoal were the other things I had time to spot – before we went along a corridor; a room with several tables – each with small mounds of mushy moss stuff on – was entered, and a couple of women wearing purple aprons that said Catkins and Clematis on were stood there.

I explained myself and my notepad and showed them my info card (which explains what encephalitis and short term memory loss are – I always have it on me when out and about), grabbed a mince pie due to my falling blood sugar, and at 10.40am – one person hadn’t arrived, and we were warned that some material can be toxic (and it was probably best to wash our hands before having a mince pie). There were rings of thin willow branches – from trees at Compton Verney – on the tables with mounds of moss, ribbons of lots of different colours were visible on one, a women said the best wreaths have lots of different textures, and at 10.45am – wreath making began.

Twine was tied round the ring, a sausage shape of moss was placed on and twine was rolled round (as a base for the foliage that would go on), the short blonde woman came over and asked very nicely if I’d got all that and if I needed anything repeated; then I attempted to properly wedge it all in (and we had all been equipped with blue plastic gloves), my blood sugar finally agreed to rise, and I began doing my usual own thing and being unconventional – and stuck a big stalk bolt upright in my wreath. I continued, and when I finished, Mum termed it ‘more of a flower arrangement’, and 1 of the ladies came over, she thought my wreath was very unique, and – following Mum saying we’d done the pottery day – told us the man doing it had mentioned me.

Mum had decided we’d have lunch by then, a colouring sheet was found on the other side of the shop, and she was asked about allergies by a woman at the till of the cafe (as it is now compulsory to ask – the woman had put it as ‘food is now a weapon’). She drew an odd smiley face on her colouring sheet – which was titled ‘Angeliqua – an alien’ (and this alien had ear trumpets); and it was 1.44pm when we got up…

…while sun was bright outside, the wind made it feel freezing; there was a huge sculpture of a horse and cart (with what looked like huge peanuts on it)….

…trees were ginormous, there were life rings at the edge of the lake, leaves were being raked up by 2 humans under a couple of huge trees, a loud helicopter flew over, a massive wire spider sculpture was on the grass; in the shop – Spice Kitchen stuff included chai spiced hot chocolate, and I didn’t have time to spot anything else because the wreaths were collected and we got on the buggy back to the car park.

It was about 2.10pm, 10°C and sunny when the car moved, I had my creation on my lap and couldn’t see clearly out of the windscreen; at 2.43pm we were parked at the end of town (as we were collecting the weekly veg bag from a shop there) and the supermarket opposite was advertising a lot of Christmas stuff – and I could see shelves and shelves of Quality Street and Celebrations boxes on shelves inside; a couple of yellow ‘CAUTION – WET FLOOR’ signs that looked like partially peeled bananas were outside a Flex Barbers shop, and the river looked at normal levels.

We were home just after 3pm, Soot the cat greeted us (and Mum gave him a bowl top up), and I went out and chopped a couple of bits off the holly tree while the weekly veg bag was unpacked – and was found to contain a little very very purple cabbage, cauliflower, 4 extremely muddy beetroot, some extremely long carrots (and Mum wondered if the longest could be used as a weapon), parsnips, 1 onion, 2 pears, a big apple, and sprouts. Soot got up, I cuddled him, then wedged the bits of holly into my wreath, found a roll of twine and attempted to hold things in place; darkness was rapidly falling – so I went out and closed the roost hole at 4.02pm (when it was 8°C and feeling like 5°C), and then I put the kettle on, and me and the cat were seated by 4.20pm.