We celebrated Christmas in our usual way, with a big, family Xmas tree event, at which Santa's helpers served up lots of festive baking. Calories which might have been shed, through the whole business of finding a tree and lugging it home, were amply replaced by shortbread, warm apple crumbles, blueberry muffins and cake, setting the tone for the rest of the holiday.

It’s traditional for everyone to argue over which is the perfect tree and because we like a happy ending our solution is to let children take a wee tree of their own, which helps to keep the peace. 

Once again, the event was well attended with 159 people turning up, including more young families than ever. We were slightly worried that a hard frost on December 11th would put people off but it was a beautiful sunny day and, with snow on the hills all around us, folk were really in a festive mood.

We are grateful for very generous donations amounting to just over  £1,000  which will go towards various projects and equipment for our work in the woods. 

This event has become a fixture in many calendars and, speaking of which, we were pleased to sell around a dozen of our own, created by Michael McGinnes from Kinnesswood, and featuring pictures of wildlife in our woodlands.

Michael has also organised the first event of the new year, a day of birch pulling in the Moss by NatureScot staff and volunteers, on Wednesday January 18th. We're delighted to welcome them back, for this really tough job, and some of the Portmoak Community Woodland Group will be working alongside them. Please give us a wave, if you're passing. 

As ever, removing the birch saplings, as well as the 'Xmas tree' spruce, from the peat bog, is all part of our restoration project.

We had hoped that, this month, we would be looking forward to our Burns ceilidh but regretfully we are unable to go ahead with it, due to a number of circumstances beyond our control.

Of course, we’ll be lining up lots of other events and your suggestions are always welcome, as is your attendance at our friendly meetings at 7.30pm, on the third Tuesday of each month, in the Well Inn, Scotlandwell. 

We wish you a very happy 2023.