Tree-hugging season is almost here!

At least, so say the Woodland Trust, who know more than a thing or two about caring for our leafy friends.

From 1st December, the charity is declaring Winter Treehugging Season, encouraging us to get up close and personal with the stalwarts of nature: our country's oldest trees.This is all in aid of its Ancient Tree Hunt, a five-year project to record all the ancient trees in the UK. It's already clocked 20,000 of the 'ancients' around the country, but it's now up to the public to find the rest - estimated to be around 80,000 in number.

But don't assume the trust is expecting you to do its work for it without due concern for your winter wellbeing: for your troubles, it's offering a free designer knitting pattern for a scarf that doubles up as an ancient tree measuring device! The pattern, along with another for a pair of tree-huggin' mittens is available here.

The Winter Warmer Ancient Tree Hunting scarf measures exactly 1.5 metres in length, the same size as (I love this bit) a 'British Standard Hug'. The measurement is officially recognised by the Ancient Tree Hunt team as an easy way to measure the girth of trees, because a fat girth is one of several indicators of age.

Check out the Woodland Trust's Ancient Tree Hunt pages for more info.