TASK: Hand stands

Hands touch, heal and hurt; hands reveal, tell the stories of our lives; old hands, young hands, workers hands, idle hands... look and think about hands... post a picture of your own hand, let it tell its own story, be as imaginative as you like with the background, throw shadow puppets, gesture as the mood suits, or simply present an open palm, and write as inspired.

Mr Burns the Dragon by Freddie Thomas Smythe (age 8)

Freddie's firebreathing dragon was created from sticks, bark, moss and feathers, and includes a heart-shaped piece of broken pottery that formed the head, all of which were collected from the winter wonderland that was Buxton Park that day. Freddie had to wait three days for all the woody matter to dry out so he could create it and as soon as he had- it upped and flew away - magical.

Snow Flake the Reindeer by Eva Mae Smythe (age 6)

Eva's reindeer was created from sticks, twigs and leaves collected from the park in Buxton after a glorious winter walk; with the addition of silver-paper snow made from the wrappers of chocolate snowballs eaten in the car on the way home. It all added to the fun.

TASK: Nature's art from a child's heart

We are told Christmas is a time for so many things -

for forgiveness, for laughter, for peace ever after.

It is a time for eating, drinking and being merry.

And it is a time for family

...and especially for children.

And in this mad world that never stops long enough for us to get off and pause for breath, we rarely get a chance to spend enough time with our children (or other people's) to remember what the world looks like through the child's eyes.

So this Christmas task is to see the world through the eyes of a child and make a picture out of it. For this task you will need nothing more than a handful of youngsters if you can find them, one if that is all there happens to be around, and a bit of the beautiful and bountiful outdoors.

Take said child(ren) into the wonderous natural world - a beach, a park, a wood, anywhere you can get messy and find a supply of suitable raw materials - where the imagination can work its magic... and create a picture.

You may wish to start by collecting enough sticks to make a picture frame. You may wish to frame your work of art in another way, or perhaps it doesn't require a frame at all.

Let the children and the child in you be the guides - don't try to impose an adult view of the world and of what art should be - an adult's view is never as interesting, creative or magical as a child's.

Then take a photo of your picture and post it here...

Merry Christmas everybody, or as they say round these parts where I am indulging in the festivities - Nadolig Llawen (with a bit of God Jul and Buon Natale thrown in for good measure!!).

Happiness...

'The most sought-after and elusive of conditions,

happiness is one of the central themes in human history.

Yet do we even know what it is, much less how to attain it?'

…So begins a book entitled ‘The Discovery of Happiness’ by Stuart McCready.

In this book we meet Plato and Socrates, we visit Nirvana and the soul. From Sufism's magical dancing to the utilitarianism of the Enlightenment, the authors explore every facet of this elusive concept from a philosophical, academic and spiritual perspective.

But interesting as it is, in this book there are no pictures of my children, no kisses from my husband, no hugs from my parents as they arrive on the doorstep, no phonecalls from my distant sister, no texts from my friends, and no images of me flopped on the settee at the end of a hard day with a glass of wine in my hand and something mindless on telly, the kids snoring softly in their beds and my wonderful man performing culinary magic in the kitchen.

There are no pictures of the sun filtering through the clouds, no wafts of cardamom, no sensations of a soft pillow against my cheek, no heart-stopping moments of the sheer joy of being alive.

So whatever happiness is, it sure as hell isn't easy to put down in words! I tried...

How could I be otherwise?

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone,

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves we lose in the sea

e e cummins (selected poems 1923 - 1958)

I am happy, for I have known happiness in my life and I have known love. I feel love. I am loved.

How could I be otherwise?

He's only happy when he's miserable!

Spiritually, I've only known true happiness once. It lasted about two, maybe three, weeks. And I knew it was happiness, in the blissful sense, only when it was finally ebbing away from me. Would I like to return to that state of mind? You bet! Will I get there again? I hope so.

But that's only one kind of happiness. I believe there are as many kinds of happiness as there are people. Something my mum used to say ('he's only happy when he's miserable'!) illustrates the point. There's something about a sustained bout of misery that can also be deemed 'happiness' if that's what suits you at the time. Or the happiness gained from getting through another day without any particular mishap. Or finding that vacant parking space in a busy carpark. Or knowing that you are loved.

Yes, I'd say I was happy, even though I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that! But even in my most anxious moments, I'm still happy. I suppose it's because this is my life, and I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

Oh, and one other thing... friends = happiness. So thankyou all!!!