An Irvine woman has turned her front garden into an incredible Christmas 'Enchanted Woodland' to raise awareness of Parkinson's disease.
Catherine Reid, of Bank Street, created the festive wonderland in memory of her father who lived with Parkinson's before his death three years ago, aged 85.
With help from her family, she began planning the garden months ago before getting to work and creating characters out of upcycled materials such as old cushions, wood and wool.
It now includes snowmen, penguins, reindeer, Santa gonks and Christmas trees. One feature asks visitors to consider texting donations to Parkinson's UK Scotland.
Catherine revealed how the garden has gone down a treat with people of all ages.
She told Ayrshire Live: “When they smile it honours Dad, the man he was before Parkinson’s stole him.
"We have a local school by us so there's a lot of foot traffic and where we live is one of the main roads that go into the town of ours so there's lots of cars and lots of people going past all the time.
"So I thought it was a good place to get people's attention.
"I wanted to raise awareness for Parkinson's in memory of my dad and, at the same time, cheer everyone up as it's been a particularly difficult year.
"And it's done that, it's been great. We've had such a super reaction from people going by, from little children to grumpy men!"
Catherine admitted a lot of hard work went in to getting her festive woodland vision just right.
She added: "It's taken a long time because every item that there is has been cut out from fabric, sewn together and stuffed. Even the setting out took days but we've been working for a few months.
"Usually we've had a cake sale in the garden to raise money for Parkinson's but because of Covid we couldn't do that so we thought we would do this.
"We're just asking everyone to donate by text. We didn't want to leave a donation tin outside. We've had people throw money in the pond so I'll put that in at the end of the month."
Jan Mattison, Parkinson UK's regional fundraiser for west of Scotland, said: “Catherine has gone to great efforts to put her fantastic Christmas Enchanted Woodland together in her front garden.
“There are over 300 people living with Parkinson’s in North Ayrshire and Catherine has done a great job raising awareness of the condition while putting a smile on people’s faces at the same time.”
To donate, text WONTWAIT to 70300 to give £3 or WONTWAIT to 70500 to give £5. More details can be found at https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/get-involved/text-donate
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