Castle Kennedy

This time last weekend, we were coming home from a spectacularly wonderful day spent at Castle Kennedy, not far from Stranraer. I don't know why we haven't visited these gardens before, but I can recommend them. And - fortuitously - we arrived at precisely the right time of year, since the rhodies and azaleas were at their very best.

There is something soothing about this garden that is immensely appealing - perhaps it's the fact that every vista is so beautiful, and perhaps that the pathways are all of soft grass, which makes the walking very easy. All I can say is that it was one of the best days out I have had for some time - and I want to go back again as soon as possible. Not only that, but they were having a plant sale too - irresistible!

Old Irish Crochet Lace in Silk

This is another amazing find from the bottom of a box of very old and beautiful linen and lace but at first I didn't recognise it for what it is! Most of the Irish Crochet Lace which I have come across until now has been made in very fine cotton - but this seemed quite different, flimsy and silky. I soon realised that it was made in ultra fine silk thread - which probably indicates that it is older than usual - an Irish Crochet collar, made, with wonderful skill, in imitation of Italian Gros Point needlelace. But crochet it is - and there are shamrocks and roses among the flowers, which are so characteristic of this lovely old form of Irish lace. This looks as though it may have sat on top of a dress - it could be worn either way, with the point at the front or the back. It may well be Victorian. I think I'd be inclined to frame it up and simply admire it!

Dressmaking Samplers

I found these pieces of textile, carefully wrapped up in a small paper bag at the bottom of a box full of absolutely wonderful old linen and lace. And just at first, I wondered what on earth they could be! Because I had never seen anything like them before. They looked, at first glance, like parts of a garment, because they had buttonholes, buttons, pintucks, frills and darts. But when you looked more closely, you couldn't imagine what on earth that garment might be. One of them had a date - 1894 - embroidered on it in tiny red cross stitches, with sets of initials. One was in fine cotton, and one in flannel, with the work in blue thread. Every little piece of needlework was slightly different, and all of it very skilled. And then it struck me - these must be samplers of dressmaking - i.e. useful - needlework! I suppose the children of those who were reasonably well off might do conventional embroidered samplers, while the children of those who would be expected to make their living as seamstresses, might produce these 'useful needlework' samplers, so that they would know how to make garments of all kinds. Isn't that interesting? I find these pieces incredibly moving - I've never come across anything like them before and I'm amazed by how difficult it has been to find references to anything similar online. I wonder if they may have been made in so called industrial schools? Certainly, somebody took the immense trouble to keep them safe for over 100 years. So they deserve to be appreciated, and perhaps added to a collection of samplers.

My Gorgeous Chinese Five Clawed Dragon

I've blogged before about the enchantment of buying boxes of old textiles at auction, and then bringing them home to find out exactly what I've got. I spend plenty of time looking through these boxes on viewing day, especially when I think the price might be high, so I have to judge how much I want to spend without indulging in 'auction fever'. But every now and then, I bring something home and realise that - not only have I got a lovely collection - but I've come across something that I really want to keep. This happened to me yesterday, with what, at first glance, seemed like a nice but not especially unusual collection of old linen, lace and embroidery. I bid on it, bought it, and carried it home. Last night, I sat down to sort through it. It soon became clear that there were some wonderfully fine linens, smooth and cool - this old bleached Irish linen can feel like silk - with embroidery, cutwork and fine crochet edging. There was a little linen bag full of lace, including a piece of something so miraculously fine that I've never come across it before, but suspect it may be Alencon lace from France. There were a couple of unusual 'samplers' not the usual cross-stitch affairs, but late nineteenth century dressmaking samplers, presumably to teach young girls useful skills, like darts, buttonholes, frills, seams, cuffs etc.

And there was the dragon.

Isn't he gorgeous?

He is, I believe, a Chinese, Five Clawed Dragon, immensely lucky and - in spite of his fierce appearance - a Very Good Thing. He is in three dimensional, padded, couched, metal thread embroidery on red silk - a bit worn and damaged in places - with another two dragons above the main man.

I believe this was a Taoist altar frontal, but if anyone knows better, please do let me know. I adore Chinese and Japanese embroideries, but I have to say that they are not my speciality. I would really love to be able to make them my speciality, to research them and to find out much much more about them! Meanwhile, I think I'm going to have to keep my lovely dragon for the moment. I'll sell everything else in the box and see if I can afford him. But he needs a little restoration and preservation, so we'll just have to see.

Time Shift - Irish Crochet and Bel Broid Lingerie

Occasionally, as I've said before on this blog, I come across fascinating things in the bottom of boxes of old linen bought at auction. A couple of weeks ago, I unearthed another of these objects which open a whole world of other interesting references, material for yet more novels and short stories (which I can't find enough time to write although I'm working on it!)
This one is a delicate antique nightie, which I think dates from before the 1920s. My first thought was that it might be French, but it has pretty and undeniably Irish crochet inserts on the bodice and on the little sleeves. It is in some ultra fine, soft, light white material which I think may be old fashioned 'cambric' - a simple, long garment, with the most beautiful whitework embroidery. I can't remember when I last saw such a pretty piece of lingerie. There is a tiny blue label sewn in at the bottom hem, which reads 'Bel Broid Lingerie' and this gave me the clue I needed to find its origin. I found the following on a genealogy site:

Rose Gallagher was born about 1877. She died on 24 March 1941. She is buried at Monaghan, Ireland. Rose and her husband Charles had a factory "The Bel-broid" located in Mill Street, Monaghan, which manufactured hand embroidered linens and lingerie. They operated two embroidery factories, one in Monaghan and one just across the border in Northern Ireland.

So this infinitely stylish garment, which had been stored away in some Scottish linen cupboard for heaven knows how many years, originated in a small factory in Monaghan, in Ireland. The writer and historian in me immediately wanted to know more, much more. But that's one piece of research that will have to be filed away for a little while, since I have so much other writing on hand at the moment, including revising about 120,000 words of fiction before the end of April. But all the same, I may go back to this one. Who was Rose Gallagher? Why did she open the factory, and who were the women who worked there? I'd love to know more. So if anyone out there does know more, perhaps they could let me know, via this blog!

Gorgous Embroidered Tablecloths for Spring

I must confess to having a really soft spot for those gorgeous little embroidered tablecloths that so many women seemed to make back in the 1940s and 50s. My dear late mum was one of them, and I still have several of them, beautifully embroidered by her like a little link to my own past. I also have piles of her old Stitchcraft magazines, and browsing through them from time to time, I'm a child again, back at home, with my mum, trying to decide on her next project. Even thinking about it gives me a strange combination of pleasure and sadness! All of which means that when I find a box of beautifully embroidered old linen at auction, as I did last week, I'm disproportionately ecstatic. People who don't have the same passion can never quite understand it, but even my husband, who mostly irons this stuff, was moved to say 'hey - these are so beautifully embroidered. I couldn't tell the front from the back!'
There's an example here, with flowers and butterflies embroidered on linen - all the flowers of late spring and summer in Scotland, honeysuckle, wild roses and many others - exquisite.
I believe, as well, that these little cloths are bang on trend if the country lifestyle magazines are to be believed here in the UK. Sophie Dahl, who begins a new cookery series, on UK television this week, has a fondness for embroidered tablecloths and I can think of nothing nicer, to celebrate Easter, than a proper teatime spread, with cupcakes, dainty sandwiches, and real tea served in china cups - all on these prettily embroidered tablecloths. OK, so we're 'playing at the fifties' a bit! But it's a harmless pleasure, so why not?

An Antique Scottish Sampler

Found a lovely and obviously very old Scottish sampler at auction the other day. From the format, I would judge that it was made in the early 1800s, and by a very young girl at that. There is, sadly, no date on this one, but close examination reveals the name Mary Young, of Ayr and there are also other initials, perhaps her parents and siblings. There is a flowering tree, in the typically Scots 'strawberry' pattern and a number of birds including robins, as well as some small, but rather stately looking homes. The whole thing is faded but charming and when you think that this is a piece of needlework which may have survived for almost 200 years, and perhaps dates from a time when this cottage where we are living was actually under construction - well, it becomes all the more marvellous. Part of the reason why I love textiles so much - such an intimate connection with the past!

Introducing the Sewing Box Toys

Once upon a time, there was a family of toys. They were very very old and a bit grubby and more than a little the worse for wear, which was strange, because they had been living in a sewing box together, quite happily, for many years. But nobody had thought to stitch them, or help them in any way.

There was a big ted with a flat face, a smiley mouth and only one eye. There was a little ted with googly eyes, and black ears. There was a very very small ted with no eyes. There was a fluffy rabbit, with a green ribbon round his neck. And there was the penguin.

What were their names? I'm not sure yet.

Wait for the next thrilling installment to find out!

A Very Strange Printed Linen Textile

I came across this very strange and lovely textile at auction the other day - and, of course, came home with it afterwards. I'm currently listing it in my eBay shop, here. At first glance I thought it was Chinese, then, looking more closely, I saw that the figures and motifs were all Mediaeval European, with a slightly Scandinavian, Arts and Crafts feel. And then - examining it even more closely - I went back to my original opinion that this might well be an old Chinese textile, but made for the European market. It is quite narrow, about 37 inches wide, obviously handwoven, heavy linen. I can think of a dozen or more uses for it - it is so lovely - and there is quite a lot of it, between three and four metres, so it could be used to cover chairs, or as a small curtain or even - my favourite - as a feature wall hanging. The colours look as if they are natural vegetable dyes, so they have a wonderful subtlety. The scenes are charming. The man in the close-up, with his cauldron, looks rather as though he is holding a handbag in his left hand, but I don't suppose that's what was intended! It never fails to surprise and enchant me that - no matter how long I spend looking at various textiles - I so often come across something I have never ever seen before and can't quite identify.

Queen Victoria, In Memoriam

I often buy things at auction, usually lots of linen, from house clearances. These can be quite expensive, especially when the boxes contain lovely old lace and pretty tablecloths. These boxes are brought home, and sorted out. It can be tremendously exciting, searching through these heaps of textiles properly, wondering what might lie buried at the bottom. Usually it's yet another tablecloth or pillowcase or a heap of tiny tablemats.

Just occasionally though, you find something fascinating - and this happened to me last week, when I was sorting through a box of gorgeous old linen. Tucked into the bottom of the box was a circular linen envelope with the word Doyleys embroidered across it. That in itself was interesting, since we now tend to spell the word Doily - not that we use many of them on our dressing tables or cake stands these days!

But folded neatly into the linen envelope was a large cream silk handkerchief, and when I opened it out, I found that it was a memorial handkerchief for Queen Victoria. I had seen jubilee hankies, but not one that commemorated her death! It has a quote from Tennyson, who I believe was a great favourite with her - and a portrait of the Old Queen. She's not very pretty, but it is certainly a face full of character!

The Loose Change Project

So here's how it works. Large Viking-like son has finally moved out of his student flat, having hung on for an extra eighteen months in Glasgow, paying extortionate amounts of council tax and working first as a kitchen porter (the Ibrox experience was, so he tells me, indescribable, but character building)and then as a Quality Assurance Technician for the video games industry, for a super company called Absolute Quality. After that, he had a three month contract with Rockstar North, in the same QA role, and is currently working on another short QA contract, somewhere in deepest, darkest Cheshire. All of it on minimum wage or thereabouts. I miss him. I spend quite a bit of time in Glasgow on various writing projects, and I am so used to meeting up with him for the occasional cup of coffee or bite of lunch that the city seems sad without him. I particularly hate passing the Starbucks at the Charing Cross end of Sauchiehall Street where we have drunk many a latte together, tried to set the world to rights - and tried to think of of ways of making money. I'm a writer. The Viking wants to work creatively in the video games industry. Between us we have a lot of talent, but almost no cash. The Viking runs his own 'magazine' blog all about the video games industry, at http://passion4games.typepad.com and has thoughts of turning it into a business. I soldier away on Blogger, writing about writing at http://wordarts.blogspot.com - and also writing about textiles, interiors, Scottish History, here on the Scottish Home.

Anyway, when the Viking and his girlfriend finally emptied his room, in the latest flat, where he had been living for some two and a half years, and when we had found out just how many plastic boxes can be crammed into the back of a Honda Jazz (nine, plus assorted carriers and a large black adjustable office chair from PC World, if you want to know) we also found a big bag full of loose change. Whenever the Viking had found his pockets too heavy, he had emptied them. The weight of it all suggested that he had been doing this for the two and a half years he had spent in this flat, plus the year he had spent in the previous flat as well. In the event, when counted and recounted, it amounted to £26.00. And when much of it is in pennies, that's a lot of loose change.

I took it to the bank in a heap of little plastic coin bags and got it changed into notes. And I had a moment of inspiration.

As a full time writer, frankly, times are hard. It is increasingly difficult to earn anything like a living from the creative written word. So over the past few years, I have built a small online business, buying and selling antiques, mostly textiles: the Scottish and Irish textiles of all kinds that are my passion. It makes no fortunes either, but at least I have a certain amount of control over it. If I list items on eBay, they usually sell. And I know what I'm looking for, and what people love to collect.

And so, with the Viking's loose change in my pocket, I set out to find something which I could buy for £26.00 - but which I thought might make a decent profit. It's a bit like our own personal Bargain Hunt (a popular UK television programme!) The aim is going to be to buy and sell for a whole year - and to see exactly what sum of money we can turn our 'loose change' into. Meanwhile, I plan to write about it here, on the Scottish Home. I'll write about the hunt for bargains, the research, the objects we find along the way, their history and provenance - and the profits or losses we might make. It promises to be a bumpy ride. But I suspect it might also be absolutely fascinating! Stick with us, and see!

Gorgeous Old French Toile de Jouy

A couple of years ago, holidaying with inlaws in their apartment in the South of France, we were browsing around the French equivalent of a Car Boot Sale - a Vide Grenier, or 'Empty Attic' sale. It was here that I found some pieces of old fabric stuffed into a big wooden chest (or 'kist' as they are called in Scotland!) The stallholder had obviously cleared a large old house, if the contents of his stall were anything to go by. I'll post pictures of the other textile later. I rather think it's older than this one, very beautiful, a fascinating pattern. But this one is an old and rather beautiful Toile de Jouy with incredibly detailed rural scenes. There isn't a massive amount of it - although there is certainly enough to make some lovely cushion covers or perhaps a small throw. At the moment, I'm so curious about it, its age and where it came from, that I'm a bit loathe to sell it, so I keep it carefully wrapped in tissue paper, and sweetened with lavender, while I try to find out a bit more about it. If you recognise it, do let me know.

Old Scottish Blankets from Skeldon Mills, Ayrshire

I can't remember when I came across my first Skeldon blanket, here in Ayrshire, but I have been collecting them, dealing in them, and sometimes just using them myself, ever since. Frankly, throughout this cold winter, they have been and continue to be an absolute godsend! I source them in a variety of places, including charity shops, antique markets, boot sales and - recently - at auction, where I found myself paying rather too much for a pair of gorgeous unused blankets, still in their original packaging. There was only one drawback which was that they had been stored among smokers, and consequently smelled strongly of kippers! I will be washing them - but that is one of the benefits of these wonderful textiles. They can be washed and they come up quite beautifully - soft, fluffy and fresh.

The old Skeldon Mills were situated down on the bonnie banks of the River Doon, close to Hollybush. We have friends who live nearby, and a pretty little cairn marks the spot where the old Skeldon Village once stood. Sadly - and although the mills and village had stood on this beautiful spot for more than 100 years, first as an oatmeal mill, and then as a woollen mill, the village was demolished by the landowner some time in the nineteen sixties. Some of the mill buildings survive, as storage space for a business, but the village itself was razed to the ground. I'm told that the doorkeys of the lost cottages are buried beneath the cairn, in a memorial garden on the site. I would like to think that something similar could not happen nowadays - but, frankly, I'm all too sure it could!

You'll find more about the history of the site here. I've been hunting for a photograph or picture of the old village - but can't find one, which is both amazing and sad! The blankets remain - although as usual with textiles, they tend to be undervalued in the place where they were once made, and I have found far too many people cutting them up for dog blankets. Much as I like dogs, Skeldon blankets are much too precious for Fido or Rover to sleep on. Even when they are a little worn, or marked, they are wonderfully warm and soft. I've given slightly damaged blankets to friends to use on boats or in caravans, since they wash so well. But the good quality survivors - and there are quite a lot of them - make fabulous throws on chairs, couches or beds. The creaminess of the wool has to be seen to be believed, and they come with a variety of lovely stripes: pink, blue, yellow or green, as well as occasional specimens that have pink and blue checks. People used to acquire them as wedding presents - but all too often seemed to store them away and never use them! Their loss is our gain.

Camphor, Smoke, Moths and other Problems

Have bought a variety of interesting, and - on the whole - very beautiful vintage blankets this week, and will soon be listing them in my eBay shop, The Scottish Home. But most of them, although new, and in their original packaging, have had to be washed, because they had obviously been stored in various houses where people smoked. Not only was the cellophane a strange yellow colour, but all these lovely, unused, albeit sixty year old, woollen blankets, stank of cigarette smoke - they were kippered! I doubt if there is anything more disappointing than coming home with some wonderful old textile, to find it saturated with the scent of somebody's old ciggies. It's fine when you're dealing with linens or woollens, which can easily be washed. And all my blankets now smell wonderful. But it's terrible when- as has occasionally happened to me in the past - you find some lovely old embroidered picture, or Cantonese silk shawl - something you can't possibly wash - and you get it home to find that it smells of smoke. Textile conservators must have a way of dealing with this, but it isn't something that you can deal with in a domestic setting.

My other intractable problem, last year, was to buy a box of old quilts and coverlets - only to discover that they were permeated with such a strong smell of camphor that they were utterly unusable. Even driving home with them in the car was a bit of an ordeal. I don't think it can have been mothballs - too strong. I suspect they had been stored in a powerful camphorwood wardrobe or chest for many years. The linens that came in the same box, had to be washed several times, at high temperatures, and then hung out on the line, before the smell disappeared. But in the box were several very pretty bedcovers, made in some early man made fibre - and they simply would not respond to washing at all. I hung them on the line, and went away for a week. It rained on them. I came back, rinsed and dried them - and the pungent smell of camphor filled the house. I figured, eventually, that with these manmade fibres, the camphor molecules had somehow bonded with the textile molecules (but, of course, I'm no chemist!) and the coverlets were doomed to smell horribly of camphor for all eternity. So I got rid of them.

I got to thinking afterwards, how these Victorian gentlemen, in their tweeds, or ladies in their fur coats and capes, which were - of course - stored in the same kind of camphorwood, to deter moths, must have gone around absolutely stinking of this somewhat toxic substance. Not at all nice, although perhaps if everyone smelled like that, nobody noticed!

Which leads me to moth deterrence. Lavender is pretty good, and I find I use a lot of it: lavender bags, dried lavender, strong lavender essential oil (which smells almost medicinal, but very nice) and sprays. Better than camphor any day!

An Old Scottish Village

Nice old image of a Scottish village from the early 1900s. The interesting thing is that this one has - in close-up anyway - rather a lot of figures in it, especially children who would probably be recognisable to their offspring. I suppose there's even a chance that some of them may still be going strong!

The Burn in the Snow

Last of the snow, I think and I don't know whether to be glad or sad. It's melting, making horrible puddles on the ice and thudding down onto the conservatory roof.

More snow is forecast for the West of Scotland, but I suspect it will be our usual wet sleety stuff. The birds seem very pleased about it all though, cavorting about the garden!
The burn that runs through the centre of the village was particularly beautiful yesterday - went out for a brisk walk in the middle of the day and took some pictures.

More snow - and an account from 1815.

Woke yesterday to a village covered in snow. This is the longest cold spell I can remember here. It is very beautiful, but causing vast problems throughout the UK. It is also hugely expensive in terms of fuel and cancelled journeys - and it has been going on for weeks now. However, while the man made global warming sceptics vie with the man made global warming enthusiasts over reasons why (and this is not the place to go into arguments for and against in any detail, nor am I qualified to do so) - there is something to be said for the historical perspective. Some years ago, an elderly lady in the village showed me a copy of the old village schoolmaster's 'Commonplace Book' which she had rescued from a bonfire. You can read about it in more detail here.


I remembered this yesterday, because when I first read it, it crossed my mind that I had never seen such weather in December, in this village - the most we normally see is the odd snow shower in January or February, which quickly melts. So here's what our 'dominie' wrote in his account of the Great Snow, in 1815.

“December 15th Stormy day, wind from the west and sleet showers in the forenoon and hail showers towards the evening making the ground gray immediately after the shower but almost melted before next shower.

16th The ground covered with snow about 4 inches deep, snow showers frequently during the day which covered the earth about 7 inches deep. I shovelled the doors twice this day. Wind NW

17th More snow during last night. I shovelled the doors a third time, also Sunday morning, the snow this day about 10 inches deep, in general the weather being always since the snow fell at first, quite calm. Some blades of snow in the evening, hard frost, wind North.

20th I rose about 9 o’clock this morning. There is a strong wind from NE with a very thick snow and drift which continued until the evening incessantly when the snow ceased but the wind continued to drift only what snow fell during the day and the preceding night as the snow that had fallen previous to that was saddened with the nature of the thaw, the hares were only beginning to look out as yet but plenty of partridges this evening is just to my mind. (Not sure what he meant by that last paragraph but I quote it verbatim!)

21st Beautiful day, keen frost, wind NE I never saw so deep a snow in general though I have seen much greater weather.

22nd Keen frost in the evening and during night, strong sound from the linn but clear sky and hard frost and wind NE.

23rd Windy with sleet and rain from the south, rained this whole day incessantly. Wind South.

Not a pleasant December then - much like last month, and I'll bet it continued into January. No central heating to temper the frosts either. This was a time when outdoor curling was a regular occurrence in South West Scotland - again, something that we haven't seen for years - but are certainly seeing now.

All of which is interesting, isn't it?

A Happy New Year!

... to all our readers, from the frozen South West of Scotland. Last night, the temperature was ten below, and - in spite of being invited to an excellent party - we elected to stay put. Alan has arthritis and couldn't negotiate the bridge over the burn which is like a mini Cresta Run and has been, since well before Christmas. No sign of a thaw either. Although the house was reasonably warm you could feel the temperature dropping and dropping. We had a splendid Hogmanay, all the same, just the two of us (the youngsters having left for Edinburgh) - warm fire, candles, drinks, and ancient variety stars on STV. This year, STV's offering was like a parody of itself - you would have thought it was all a spoof, reading the listings - but the old film clips turned out to be as enchanting as such things usually are. Music Hall lingered long in Scotland, still does in the pantomimes, and the programme recording all this was wonderfully cheesy. When we found ourselves chorusing forgotten names in unison, we realised that we were enjoying ourselves very much indeed.

Today, it's so cold that I keep expecting to see the White Witch's sleigh trundling along the village street. This is incredibly unusual here. We almost never have snow and normally, when we do, it melts very quickly. Now, it's too solid even to make a snowman and reminds me of the two years I spent working in Finland when I was a young woman. Our local council, South Ayrshire, seems to have run out of grit. At any rate, none of the side roads, even in the county town of Ayr, seem to have been gritted and people keep having accidents. I suspect they budgetted for grit in anticipation of the 'warmest winter ever' - the tabloids had been running the usual stories about primroses blooming in November - every year without fail these appear - and this year the council believed them. Or perhaps they couldn't afford to stock up on grit. Now we're stuck with the coldest snap I can remember in all my years of living here, it seems set to continue well into the New Year and there's not a thing we can do about it. Except get out the Ayrshire blankets, the whisky macs (one part whisky to two parts Crabbie's Green Ginger - it HAS to be Crabbie's) and sit it out.

Christmas Ted

This is one of my favourite teds. He's very old, and - as you can see - a bit fragile, but immensely loveable.

He does feel the cold a bit, however, hence the blanket and the woolly scarf. Got to look after our venerable old bears ...

Christmas Trees

I have to have a real Christmas tree. I'm certain it's because my dear, late, Polish dad wouldn't have an artificial tree in the house. I would rather have a few pine boughs in a vase than a plastic tree. My husband, on the other hand, isn't particularly bothered, though he is willing to trail around after me while I look for exactly the right tree. Preferably one that doesn't cost a small fortune. This year, we visited Homebase and B & Q before finally finding what we were after in Dobbie's. The thing that irritated me about the first two stores was that almost all their trees were in nets already, and there was absolutely nobody about who could be asked to unwrap them, so that I could look at them. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not going to spend £20 - £25 without having a good look at what I'm buying. I've since compared notes with a friend from the North of England, and she has had the same problem. The stores are getting lazy. In Dobbie's on the other hand - where the trees were no more expensive - there were two obliging young people on hand, to show off the trees, net them up, and make sure you had help loading them into your car. Good for them.

Alan had been insisting that we needed a narrower tree this year. He has a point. At various times over the holiday season, we have a number of visitors and the tree is in danger of being knocked over in the rush. But the one he confessed he would have brought home himself looked as if it had been put through a shredder. I told him that if he had come home with it, I would have cried. What we eventually bought is something called a Lodge Pole Pine - an elegant, umbrella shaped tree. I confess to a few misgivings of the ecological variety, but then I'm aware that even these trees need to be thinned out! It is a truly beautiful Christmas tree and now that it is trimmed, I'm even happier. Oh and it smells lovely too.