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Call me old fashioned

I am not sure if it's a characteristic of my generation - a baby boomer - but I do appreciate and enjoy tradition, and I am very attached to following the seasons, embracing those things which can only happen at certain times of the year.  Hence my habit to make marmalade in January, when the Seville oranges appear in the shops.  It's a time consuming task, but women have been boiling and shredding up bitter oranges, and cooking them with ridiculous amounts of sugar, since the mid 1600s, so why stop now!
And here's another thing I love about this time of year, and reminds me of the nature table at school when I was about six - catkins!  I know the Junior Oxford English Dictionary has done its best to banish them from the English language, but the lamb's tails will still be hanging from the hazel trees long after play stations and smart phones are old technology.  

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