Brown Soup Days

We have reached the time of the year, I like to refer to as 'Brown Soup'. The weather has changed from deliciously, invigoratingly frosty to damp and sludgy with rain pouring down from skies that are hanging heavy and low over the landscape. A local saying around here suggests that when a particular hill is wearing its hat (i.e. cloud sitting on the top), the day will be wet. Well, dear reader, more than once recently, it hasn't been so much wearing a hat as burrowing itself under a cloud duvet. 

But these are the necessary rest days and the weather is doing nothing more than helping us slow down and take stock. They are the days where you can stay in the softest clothes you own, catching up on books, tv shows, music that you'd been meaning to all year, if only you had the time. Well, now you do. Say thank you to the weather. 

There are walks, but of the sort that make you scurry home faster than usual. There are gatherings but these have lost the frenetic energy that powers the pre-Christmas ones and we don't mind when someone inevitably dozes off in the corner. There is yoga of the sort that requires lying down rather than pushing through some kind of core workout. These are not the days to push through (unless you're in active labour), but to rest. 

These are also the days for clearing out. What no longer serves is being taken out of its habitual hiding place, shaken down and held up to the low winter light for inspection. We have donations for the charity shop, items listed on Freecycle and boxes of memories packed away for the attic: the postcards and birthday cards and ticket stubs and ephemera of life that will have no relevance to anyone but us, but still they remain and we can't quite bring ourselves to throw them out. 

Somehow, despite resolutely not buying anything of the kind, we find ourselves with boxes of mince pies, biscuits and chocolates. Not many, but more than we would normally buy in a year. Some have gone to the foodbank, but they appear to have reproduced in the way boxes of that sort do and are part and parcel of the feasting and gluttony we do to shore us up against the cold and bitter days to come. 

To counter all this sugar, I make brown soup from leftovers in the fridge. The rain is tapping gently at the window and I can see the thin branches of the acer whipping about in the wind. We haven't seen the fish since November as they've taken themselves down into the warmer depths of the pond. I have a large pan of stock coming to the boil on the stove top and Kirstie Young is talking about her desert island discs in the background. Above me, I can hear the bump-buzz-thunk of the hoover being pushed about the floor. 

On the chopping board, leftover roast potatoes, carrots, sprouts, swede and parsnips are neatly (ish - this is not a beauty competition, this is Brown Soup) cubed and waiting to be added to the stock. My phone pings with a message from an old, old friend saying they would be delighted to see us for japes and larks, or, more sensibly, scrabble. 

Cheered by the news, I reach back into the fridge for the leftover turkey, pigs in blankets and stuffing. Just a handful or 2, enough to add some protein and some of that gorgeous sagey flavour. The cat flap bangs and seconds later Mabel headbutts my leg vigorously, loudly demanding biscuits. Her fur is cold and damp, thick and fluffy in its winter condition. She's been patrolling her patch, defending the borders against the evil tabby, and her eyes are glowing green with triumph. I feed her. 

A quick step into the garden for some lemon thyme. Shake the rain from my hair and pull the leaves from the stems. 

Everything in the pot, I leave it all to simmer while I occupy myself watching the weather beat against the house. The black-eyed susans were finally forced into giving up flowering during the cold snap and now the stems that wound so vigorously around the jasmine during the autumn are hanging limply, like so many bored socialites, all limp and jaded greenness. Hanging from them are raindrops like glass beads and, in that delicious betwixt times kind of way, I let my thoughts drift while watching them drip. 

The smell of soup, and the silence of the hoover, brings me back to the now and I turn my attention to the tricky business of tipping the contents of the steaming pan into the blender: have I misjudged the amount of stock and it will all overflow? Have I misjudged the angle of the tilt-and-pour and am about to have a counter liberally covered? Luckily the answer is no. Blend, noisily, for 30 seconds. Tip the resulting liquid back into the saucepan and back onto the hob. 

Taste, season, add a glug of Worcestershire sauce - the proper stuff. My, this is a brown soup indeed. Thick and rib-sticking, it promises to cure all ills, to coat your bones in a comforting umami hug. It will win no beauty prizes, but it will see you right, cutting through the gluttony, the sugar highs and lows, the hangovers and the hang-unders. 

It brings both my boys to the table where we break bread and nourish together, facing the oncoming change of the year. 

A note on the image above: I can't find the name or reference for this, although I am getting a hint of Vanessa Bell, maybe? If you know, can you let me know so I can credit properly? 

Winter Joy

Like absolutely everyone down here, south of Birmingham, we were hit last week by a cold snap, and I could not have been happier. As a person whose temperatures naturally run high (maybe because I was born in the summer of 76?), I am at my absolute best when the ground outside is frosted and the air chill nips my ears red. Far from condemning the Snow Queen in Narnia, I have sympathy for her endless winters and the build up to Christmas being more exciting than Christmas itself. 

I'm less with her on the turning people into statues issue, but hey, who doesn't have a character flaw or two?

So you can probably imagine my joy each morning as I would peer through the blinds to see a sparkling world, dressing hurriedly, so I could get a walk in before having to switch on the laptop for work. Pacing slowly along the canal in my boots and layers, more wool than woman, stopping to capture the light. 

It was simply a delight to walk every morning, timing it so the school rush was over - or not yet begun - and the canal path was pretty much just me and a couple of hardy dog walkers. Joggers and cyclists moved to the main roads and left the space clear for us to wander at will, filling our eyes with the sparkle and snap of the morning. 

The moon was bright and glorious each time while the sun cast benevolent halos that made me blink. The rushes and reeds glinted, bejewelled by the frozen droplets that turned them into living chandeliers. Leaves were etched, their veins picked out in silver, while mosses retreated into their own tiny frozen worlds. 

I don't think I walked a straight line once, so dazed was I by how beautiful it was, by the patterns in the frozen canal, by the cloud of my breath spiralling up into the clear sky. 

Tiny Wee Mabel enjoyed trying to catch the snow during one of the handful of flurries we had. Just 8 miles down the road, they were shovelling it off driveways. Friends in Wales and the Cotswolds made me green with envy as they showed off their magical, sparkling gardens, made mysterious and slightly eerie by the snow-quiet and pale light. 

We are bunkered in for Yule now. Presents brought, wrapping still to be wrestled with. Food to be prepped (I'm making a magnificent trifle this time, after last year's pavlova affair). The day itself will be full of family; the day after just him and me, recovering from the previous day and letting our blood sugars slowly return back to normal. There will be large sandwiches full of turkey and stuffing and redcurrant sauce and, oh, all the trimmings, always so much better between 2 slices of thick bread the next day. 

This isn't a good season for everyone, I know. If you are still deciding which charity to make a seasonal donation too, I heartily recommend this one, which I've supported for a number of years. Or, seek out one nearer to you. 

Wherever you find yourselves and whatever you find yourselves doing, I hope this is a good season for you. May your trees be bright, your puddings fulsome and your lie-ins lengthy. 

Tales from the Pudding Front

How it should have been...

First of all, a word of advice. Do not attempt the making of this dessert whilst 3 baileys/beers/glasses of wine/[insert drink of choice] to the better on Christmas Eve. If you’re sober and ready, then we’ll begin. 

First, the meringue. Separate egg whites from yolks. You’ll need only 6 but will actually use 8 as at least 2 of them will scramble during the separating process. Add sugar and whisk until stiff peaks. Do not attempt to do this by hand. Use electric whisk or spend Christmas Day asking passers by to cut up your food because your wrists have given up. 

Split the mix into 2, creating a sort of indent on one of them which will form a space for the creams and whatnot, and bake at 100 (electric fan oven). You have successfully completed the easy bit. Go and lie down while it bakes. Have another drink. Well done you. 

Now, raise yourself from the sofa and sift the cocoa powder into the double cream. Watch it drift and settle over every surface. Congratulations! You now have a brown kitchen and a speckled Baileys. Add the sugar and whisk in. 

Stop! Not that much. Now you have curdled chocolate cream. Start again. 

This next step calls for ground hazelnuts except you couldn’t find ground hazelnuts and the man in the shop thought you were mad asking for it: “Ground hazelnuts? Do people want ground hazelnuts? Nah. Ground almonds though.”

Sigh and buy the chopped hazelnuts, figuring you can grind them yourself with a rolling pin. This you can now do. At some point your rolling pin will slip and partially ground hazelnuts will scatter across the counter and onto the floor. Make sure you’re working on a very clean work surface before you begin or the damned nuts will also contain cat biscuits and crisp crumbs. 

Fold these, the vanilla (extract because, again, you couldn’t find ground vanilla ANY WHERE) and suspect the recipe makers are fucking with you. Ditto ground cardamom (leave that one out, no one will know)). Add the liquor of choice: one for the pudding, one for you etc. 

Spread the chocolate cream over the meringues and sandwich together, covering the top one with more choc cream. Do not press too hard or you will have invented Tabletop Eton Mess and have to start again. 

Realise at this point that you forgot the first steps which was to make a super-chocolatey cream involving double cream and bitter chocolate melting together. Raise your hands to the sky and ask the Kitchen Gods why they are making this so hard. At this point significant others in the room will find reasons to leave..."pub's about to shut and I really need...peanuts...YES! Peanuts!"

Decide to improvise by making vanilla cream (again, no one will know). Make vanilla cream without bothering the wash the fucking bowls for the fourth fucking time that day. You now have mildly chocolatey vanilla cream. It will taste fine, don’t worry about it. Wrestle this into plastic tub, getting the spatula stuck between the tines of the whisk. Abandon both in washing up bowl. 

Now to deseed the pomegranate. It is a good idea to warn loved ones that you are doing it so that when they walk into the kitchen they do not fall to their knees screaming "but it was only a pudding, there was no need for murder!" This is because pomegranates are EVIL and will splatter bright red juice over you, all surfaces, walls, cupboard doors, appliances, floors, livestock and all stationary objects within a 100 metre radius. Congratulations! You now look like a crime scene. 

Decide that you will take all constituent parts (meringues, creams, seeds and other decorative items) and assemble in situ on Christmas Day with small children because that will be FUN. You will assume this because Christmas has made you lose your mind. Go and lie down in darkened room, leaving clearing up to those lucky bastards that escaped to the pub. They will be shifting sticky sugar and cocoa mixes for hours. Probably a good idea to have a bath. 

On the day, carefully transport the pudding components, along with a billion bags of presents, unsent cards that will now be hand delivered to relatives (so much nicer!), the entire beer supply of your local shop and several overnight bags of anxiety, stress and familial angst. 

After present carnage and gluttony at the table, gather small children unto you and attempt to guide them. 

"No, we squeeze the piping bag from the top."

"Please don't hit each other with the spatula."

"Yes, the gold dust is pretty but you shouldn't squirt it in each other's eyes."

"I really think that's enough cream in that spot."

"Maybe if we try spreading it..."

"Yes, that did make a rude noise when you squeezed it."

"No, I don't think we should just throw the pomegranate seeds in the bin."

"Could you not see if you can get gold sprinkles in your brother's ear?"

You are now covered in sticky substances and gold dust. Serve and eat. Silently cast curses in the direction of those refusing it: "I really couldn't, I'm so full" (may all their sandwiches be dry turkey ones). Bask in delighted noises from those that do eat it: "this is soooo delicious!", "bloody hell, how much Baileys is in here?"

The meringue is perfectly chewy yet crisp on the outside. The creams are boozily delicious. There is enough sugar to take them all down with diabetes. It is a triumph. Get another drink and make those who were TOO FULL to try it, do the clearing up. 

Note: unused pomegranate seeds (i.e. all of the damn things) are good in gin. 

The actual messy reality which WAS totally delicious and 

any lapses in good taste, structural integrity or artistic arrangements 

should not now or ever be placed at the feet of the original recipe 

designers, but are entirely down to REALITY getting in the way. 

Seasons Pleasings

It’s okay, I’ll stop after this one, I promise. But I wanted to mark this Solstice with a little glimpse at things that have provoked sighs of deep contentment and let me think that, for just that moment, all is right in the world. 

Misty days where the cloud hung low, clinging to the tree tops, blurring the city lines and lending an air of mystery to my trip to the allotment, where I dug in some well rotted manure (courtesy of my friend's Shetland pony), admired cobwebs bejewelled by the damp air, and watched millipedes weave, like bright copper threads through the earth. 

It was an early start to the Sunday but my feet were toasty in thick socks and wellies. No one else was at the plots, just me with what sounded like hundreds of birds shouting their territorial rights, the chime of distant bells and the satisfying thunk of the shovel in the damp earth. 

I love misty days. They make me happy all the way to my toes and I can't wait to get out and walk in them. 

Last Friday, I took a trip to see colleagues, one that involved 2 trains there and 3 back, a cancelled train, a detour and a shouty woman on the final leg. As I reached my front door, I could see the lights on the wreath and the tree glowing through the window. Once inside it was warm, full of cats and N pleased to see me back, smelling nicely of pine, cloves and home. Settling into the sofa with a glass of wine as deep as a plunge pool and an M&S prawn sandwich, blanket over my chilled feet, fending off messages from Mum, N asked why I was sighing. 

I hadn’t realised I was, but they were the sighs of deep and blissful contentment. It was good to be home. 

Making jumbleberry jam to give to people I love over Christmas. A mix of raspberry, Japanese wineberry and blackberry, jam sugar and lemon juice. The longest part about making jam? Gathering the fruit. But that’s also the best part. 

The house smelt of sugar, fruit and that indescribable whiff of summer. 

Although the skies have been too shrouded to see the full moon, a week or so ago, I'd managed to capture it completely by accident as I stopped to take a photo of the lights at the local church. When I got home and looked back at the photos, I could see it, photobombing over the church's shoulder and looking might splendid. 

See? Splendid. It reminded me of that Jaffa Cake advert from looooong ago. Repeat after me: Full Moon, Half Moon, Total Eclipse!

A friend and I took a bimble around Malvern at the weekend, something we haven't done for a while. I dropped an astonishing amount on books (both new and second hand), and then we happened upon what is the winner of my own personal Christmas window contest...

Inside the shop was warm and bustling with the ever-cheerful owners and staff taking time to chat to everyone through the muffling of our masks. Later, we ate rum and walnut chocolate cake, exchanged presents and parted, determined to do more bimbling next year. 

Today I finish work, not back to my desk until the Thursday after Christmas*. The Kid comes home on the 23rd and I will attempt the Meringue of Folly on Christmas Eve. It's not really a peaceful time of year, but I am still going to make the most of not having to switch the computer on at 8 in the morning, of being legitimately allowed to eat After Eight mints for breakfast, to make turkey stuffing sandwiches, to watch old films. To hunker down. To take the Kid on long hill walks with flask and aforementioned sandwiches. 

To make plans and daydream.  

However you spend this time of year, and whoever you spend it with, I wish you all a very Good One indeed. Thanks for keeping stopping by here over this strange, untidy year. 

(*although I may possibly pop back here during the festive break because I don't seem to be able to keep away - even when I have Proper Work to do) 

Seasons Eatings

Every family has them. Those odd side dishes or food rituals that only appear on 25th December and incomers (sons and daughters in law mainly), look on with undisguised horror and incomprehension. But to your family, they are non-negotiable. If these foods do not appear, it isn't Christmas and boy, will you make sure everyone knows about it. 

There are the things you buy in - Quality Street, Cadbury's selection boxes, Cadbury's chocolate fingers, Terry's chocolate orange (you see where I'm going here, right?) - and things you make, bringing them to the table with a sense of propriety and pride, smiling like a beneficent god as the rest of the family choke down something they don't really like but wouldn't dream of hurting your feelings by saying so. 

For years, until Mum mastered the art of pastry, it was mince pies. My sister and I aren't sure, all these years later, what happened as this usually exceptional cook took the raw ingredients of flour, fat and liquid and turned them into something you could build a house with. Her pastry throughout the rest of the year was spectacular: light, fluffy, crisp, flaky...whatever it needed to be, it was. There was just something about the time of year that changed the way the pastry fell together. Now, years after those days, I suspect an egg was missing from the mix. 

These days, her mince pies are delicious, but somehow, I still hanker occasionally after one from my childhood years. Whenever I’m short of a weapon. Or some grouting. 

Dad didn't cook, wouldn't have wanted to cook, but would earn unending brownie points with us kids simply by deigning to share a Smartie or two from his Christmas stash.  If we were very lucky and very good, maybe even a square or - heaven! - a line of 4 squares of Fruit and Nut chocolate. Despite this being the total sum of his culinary contribution, his tastes shaped our Christmas lunches. 

I remember describing it to a friend once and she looked at me with horror; "Mushy peas? Mushy peas have No Place on a Christmas table!" They did in our house. He was not a fan of most green veg, my Pa, but put a bowl of mushy peas in front of him and he was as happy as a pig in a pea field. 

Likewise, he was not a fan of the claggy fruit-laden Christmas pudding. Yes, he'd set it on fire for us to ooh and ahh at, but that was it. Once it was safely blown out, he'd help himself to a wodge of syrup sponge pudding, adding extra syrup from that green Tate and Lyle tin that brings back such a sugar-rush of memories now, and then complain if the custard wasn't thick enough to stand a spoon up in. 

If there was not enough left for a second helping the following day, he'd sulk and refuse to share any more Smarties. 

Pity my poor Mum, influenced by Delia and Keith, desperate to bring a bit of class to our table with spiced red cabbage, goose fat roasted potatoes, a delicate cream for the puddings, only to be thwarted by his distinctly down to earth tastes. "Fancy tack!" he'd say and carve himself another slice of custard. 

This year, I tentatively suggested that we opt for rib of beef or goose (I like both more than turkey) when Mum voiced concerns about a possible avian-flu-related turkey shortage, only to be shouted down with "we always have turkey!". Like I said, some things are non-negotiable.

There will still be mushy peas this year but there won’t be a syrup sponge pudding. I’m not sure any of us could eat it without crying, and god knows, this year has rendered us soggy enough as it is. 

Instead, I’ve offered to make a festive pavlova. 2 layers of chocolate meringue, sandwiched together with a chocolate liqueur spiked cream, some pomegranate seeds and more sugary stuff that I need to buy in as I’ve sworn off it till then so we’ve nothing sweet in the house. I WILL make us a pudding to ooh and ahh at and fight over the second helpings or, so help me, take us all down with diabetes in the attempt. 

Of course, it has to survive the 40 minute car journey from here to there, so we may well be eating an Eton Mess by the time it reaches table. 

***Image above from Food Stories - click on photo for link to recipe - rest easy, mine is NOT going to look like that***

Seasons Readings

 

Because there are certain books that can only be read at this time of year. I’ve tried to read The Box is Delights in summer, The Dark is Rising in spring. It doesn’t work, they don't fit and trying to read about snow so deep you could lose livestock in it, or dark forces abroad under a wintry moon, whilst it's 30 degrees out and your toes are sweating, just means you lose something of the magic of them. 

You need the cold nipping at your toes, frost etching the skeletal bones of trees and the promise of a hearty stew on the hob for them to work.

Delights and Rising are, obviously and very definitely, Christmas Books. Or rather, they are midwinter solstice books, conjuring pagan worlds beyond our reach but tantalisingly glimpsed. A world of fires and snow, old gods and wolves, and should only ever be read in the run up to the solstice. 

My favourite, and never bettered, author, Terry Pratchett wrote Hogfather and Wintersmith in his Discworld series that are very definitely Christmas and winter themed. The former is hilarious and yet serious in its exploration of why humans need myths, why humans persist in irrational thinking, why we just need some bloody...magic. 

" WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?

'Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?' 

NO

'Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact.'

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN...A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD. 

'All right,' said Susan. 'I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need...fantasies to make life bearable.' 

...NO. HUMAN NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE." 

There are some books that I save for winter reading, just because they have passages that capture it perfectly, I only ever reread Wind in the Willows during this season. It’s invocation of home and longing taking hold in snow blown trudges is so breathtakingly perfect, it’s forever a winter book for me. Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie, while it might linger over hay-strewn, cider-sparked Midsummer dalliances, contains some of the best winter passages you could hope for. The childhood joy of snow and how it transforms your familiar world is so beautifully realised, you’ll want to be 8 years old, stout in many scarves, setting off carolling with a tin can full of smouldering rags.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a splendid read, but I tend to save for deep winter. January, when the cold has an iron grip on the ground outside, and the tree branches are stern lines in a glowering sky. That’s when I can hear the wolves* howling in the hills. 

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey will make you shiver, feel the cold deep in your bones as she perfectly captures what it just be like in the long hard winters of the deep north. The worry of ice creeping into the house with long scratchy fingers, of falling through frozen rivers, of just being damn cold All Day Long. Read with a hot chocolate, under a blanket. 

It goes without saying that now is the time to bring out the Gothic. Oh, not Dracula or Frankenstein (October and November only). No, I mean Bleak House, Wuthering Heights. Let long descriptions of fog, howling storms, snow deep enough to swallow roads, flow past you and make your duvet feel all the warmer for it. 

Of course, there is the greatest of them all, the Christmas Carol, but I actually prefer to watch that. Be it Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine or Bill Murray in the Scrooge role, I prefer those to the book. 

Writers of detective stories have always pulled out all the stops for Christmas. Agatha Christie, Nicholas Blake, Mary Kelly and more, bring out all the trimmings: evil domestic tyrants, dysfunctional families, chippy young gels who can be trusted to be ever so clever and neat at finding clues. There will be a feast, missing treasures, strange family traditions that no one understands, long held resentments, dastardly people getting their comeuppance. Snow will scatter, misunderstandings will occur, mild romance may even take place. If you are very lucky, your detective will be faintly comedic, entirely at sea in terms of manners and traditions. But good will always triumph and chippy young gels will go orff to do splendid things. 

Unless it's le Carre's Murder of Quality where there is not a jot of redemption for anyone, not even the heartbreakingly poignant George Smiley. Still, winter book.

I don’t really venture out of my comfort zone for Christmas reading. It’s a time for cracking open pages and welcoming old friends back in. For knowing what’s going to happen but still feeling gripped by it. This is nostalgia at its best - no false remembering of the past, but a revisiting. Turn the page and, oh hey, there you are! So good to see you again, come and tell me everything. 

Come and let me stay with you a while. Watch you eat the plum pudding, sing carols to the squire, defeat the villain and celebrate with a glass of something warming with your restored or newly created family. Let me feel the sneaking chill while safe under my own roof. Let me feel like a child for a moment before my own tumbles through the door, fresh from a long train journey back south. Let me remember what it was like to wake to a full stocking at the end of the bed and a tree that sent magic to every corner of the house. 

The best Christmas reading transports you to the before times. Before life admin, before work, before grief. It reminds you that danger lurks but comforts you with happy endings. 

" OH, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN THE STOCKING THAT MAKES A NOISE, said Death, OTHERWISE WHAT IS 4:30 A.M. FOR?"

What are your season's readings?

*Disclaimer - I LOVE wolves and will continue to do so until I inexplicably become a 19th century homesteader with chickens and sheep to protect

Edit: I forgot the Moomins! How on earth could I forget the Moomins, the greatest wintery creations ever to venture forth with a sensible handbag?? I blame the fact that I currently don’t have any copies on my shelves. Mine are missing, I don’t know where, and have been for a while. I shall be buying myself some replacement copies. This absence will not do. 
 

It's going to be...busy

Presents have started arriving. For the past 3 mornings, the overladen post woman has rung the bell, handed me a parcel and then vanished, juggling 10 more under her arms. When, looking through the window, I see her open up the back of the van, there are enough still in there to stock a defunct Debenhams. 

Christmas is now a mere 22 days away and the Great Flurry has begun. Today's parcel included handmade soaps and alpaca socks, tiny wishes in bottles. Yesterday, a selection of nut butters was handed over with a sigh (it was a heavy box). Tomorrow, hopefully, hand poured candles, this poster and hot chocolate to make the winter bearable for my people. 

I'm ordering as much as I can from small, independent suppliers but it is heavy on the postage charges. I'll order books from Bookshop.org and then I can't avoid heading out to the high street. Except, it's not the high street, but the one behind it where the sweetshop lurks next to the gallery, around the corner from the really good charity shop because my friend and I have a challenge - who can buy the most interesting/weird thing for each other for 4 whole English Pounds. 

Up in the little side arcade, the wool shop is where I'll get beautiful yarn for winter projects to keep a couple of recipients busy (I also need some circular needles for me), and the no-plastic shop has cool water bottles and lunch boxes I can fill with tasty things for the Kid and his partner. The deli has amazing coffee in bags and herbal teas that actually taste good and not like pond water. 

Back home via the lovely independent gift shop where I'll get things for my sister and sister in law; the plant shop just because. 

Home to make: mince pies, autumn jumble jam, peppermint bark and gingerbread. Last year was the Year of Chutney which, although it was fun to make, I would bet a house on the fact it's still in people's cupboards, unopened. In fact, I know it is because I still have a jar of my mum's from 2 years ago. Unopened. 

But nothing sweet is left unopened at Christmas. Out will come my collection of tubs, baskets and cardboard boxes stashed over the year, forming an ever more tottering tower in the small office. These now come into their own as Joy Boxes. 

Everything is better in boxes. These are filled with those bakes and makes, cards, presents and other bits of nonsense I've collected over the year - cardboard punched into the shape of snowflakes or little pictures of trees made from washi tape, a scattering of jelly babies. 

In Dad's honour, everyone gets a scattering of jelly babies this year. They were his favourite sweet. 

This weekend, we are going to get ahead of the crowd and get the tree. N took me aback by insisting we got a tree. I'd been prepared for a battle as he's really not a Christmas man, but he mentioned it first, so I'm holding him to it. We'll leave it in the garden for a couple of weeks yet - right now is too early, it'll be brown and shedding by Christmas Eve if we bring it in now. 

Then we need to leave it up for a week with no decorations as we fully anticipate a Tiny Wee Mabel incident. This will be her first Christmas with a tree. There will be shenanigans. 

Of course, I write all this now. On a calm Thursday afternoon, in the slight state of delirium that comes from having had a heavy cold for a few days. Come the cold light of the 24th, I shall be screaming at a jam that won't set, a boyfriend that hasn't secured the tree properly and a me that put so much pressure on myself. Presents will still need to be wrapped and someone I've forgotten will deliver a card. 

By midnight, I shall be 4 sherries to the bad, covered in flour and parcel tape, collapsed on the floor next to the tree, watching The Nightmare Before Christmas while the Kid and N throw jelly babies at me. 

It's going to be Christmas. 

Chuntering Nonsense

I'm currently writing this from underneath my duvet, my trusty red scarf around my neck and a Small Wee Mabel stretched out over my toes. Why this level of decadent comfort and unusual cat closeness? The boiler has packed up. 

 

Oh yes, just in time for unspecified "spell of winteriness" (genuine quote from local weather forecast). 

I went out for a walk with a friend, leaving N and the boilerman chatting happily about annual service, bleeding radiators, blah blah temperature controls blah, and returned to find the house cold and N chatting less happily on the phone about circuit boards, replacement parts blah blah, soon as you can blah.

"Soon as you can" turns out to mean £350 quid for a replacement circuit board and we'll see the man in 2 days time to fit it. Marvellous. 

Although it's annoying to be wearing scarves and 4 layers indoors, it's not really an inconvenience. We have hot water still, thanks to the immersion heater. The oven still works so a decent bout of stew making means the downstairs is warm in the evening. We have 2 portable electric heaters that warm our offices during the day and there's a shop down the road selling hot water bottles if I get really desperate. 

I once sat a mock exam in an unheated school gym in the middle of winter during a particularly vicious cold snap. My friend and I took in 2 hot water bottles each: 1 for our feets and 1 for our middles. I am not at that stage yet. 

That old Christmas thing is looming ever closer into view from the Titanic that is life right now. In what is surely the closest sign that we are engaged and Officially Committed, N has asked me to buy him clothes. 

Oh the pressure!

Is the wool of that jumper too itchy? Will I upset him if I buy a shirt a size up to cover the wee paunch of lockdown belly he's proudly sporting? Is that colour going to make him look jaundiced or in fine fettle? Are the necklines on those t-shirts going to fit just right or make him feel like he's being strangled? Am I buying things that would suit a middle aged man and not the young thing he still envisages (until he has to dig on the plot when age suddenly bites)?

Obviously, I'm aware of the honour presented to me like it was my own Christmas gift ("buy me clothes - I haven't had anything new for years and you like buying clothes"), but still. Pressure. And before you ask, no. He does not get to buy me clothes. 

I've been very much enjoying finding new routes around my city. On Sunday, I needed the library but instead of taking my usual main route, I turned off down what I'm now renaming Urine Alley (okay, that bit was not enjoyable) and walked some back streets, enjoying the feeling of being sort of not sure where I was but also vaguely sure I was going in the right direction. And if I got completely off track, I could Google Map my way out of trouble. 

Found: little micro-breweries I didn't know were there, curious houses with odd angles to them, ghost signs for long gone businesses, intriguing front gardens with yellow painted doors, wrought iron lampposts that brought Narnia to mind and the delicate tracery of ivy roots on brickwork. Someone had piled books on their garden wall and a sign in wonky black pen told us to "help yourself!". By another front gate, there was a grate of mouldering apples with a similar sign but in crayon. 

I took one to fortify myself for the return journey. It was a cooker, not an eater. 

This month I have read Wintering by Katherine May - an exploration of our physical and emotional reactions to times of stress and difficulty. How our natural reaction is to hunker down, retreat, hibernate, winter. I liked very much the concept and the book is gently written, plus it's always nice when a book validates how you are feeling/behaving.  

On the topic of books, I'm very much enjoying a foray into essays and thinking by women. Next up is Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust, an exploration of walking. Which may sound silly but I love an aimless amble (as you've just read) and there can be something very profound and powerful about the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other... "Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned..."

The clock on the nearby church has just chimed to remind me it's time to get on with some real work. Spoilsport. I'm enjoying writing more and more these days, excited for the minutes I can snatch away from proper, paying work and spend them chuntering on about nonsense. I'm not sure there's a career in that though. 

Certainly not one that pays for unexpected boiler bills. 

I posted this on Instagram the other day and then spent HOURS worrying people would 

ascribe hidden meaning to it. There is no hidden meaning, I just like the way the smoke looks against

the blue of the walls. Sometimes a blown candle is just a blown candle.  

Other images: blue skies over the allotment. Sometimes November really pulls it out of the bag. 

Betwixtmas

I’m sure I’m not the person who came up with this term but I can’t remember who did. Whoever they were, full genius marks to them as this is the perfect word to describe this period between the tired damp fag end of this year and the bright shiny start of next. 

Ordinarily, I’d be spending it clearing out cupboards, catching up with friends and family, taking long walks and generally filling my hours with activity. This year, recuperation means I can’t. I’m forbidden to lift anything heavier than a quarter full kettle, banned from all housework and under orders not to get cocky about the speed of recovery. 

Truth be told, this chafes a little bit, until I stretch too far and then the wound site chafes even more than my forced inactivity, and then I give in and have a doze on the sofa. 

Christmas dinner was a triumph, cooked by N - his first ever time of doing so. Yes, it was 2 hours late and we forgot the crackers, but there was no rush. These are the long slow days of not very much at all this year. I'm rarely properly up before 10 and he, with his infinite capacity for sleeping in, can get a good 12 hours before he wakes. 

It made me weep the morning after I'd come home when he appeared at the spare bedroom door (where I'm sleeping currently for maximum comfort) just as I was trying to struggle upright. He'd set his alarm so he could be ready with a cup of tea for me. That is consideration. 

Yesterday we had snow, as did many places. There is still something magical about this white stuff whirling down and covering everything, making it clean and bright. The cats were perplexed by their first encounter with it, although Mabel did decide to enjoy it after her initial jump back in surprise. Today, when more fell, she leapt into the air, batting it with her paws and generally acting like I wish I could have done. 

A friend of ours with a recent negative Covid test came over for a game of Trivial Pursuit, some damson gin and a lot of cheese. It brought a lovely dose of new energy and conversation to the house. Her present to me this year was a handmade apron with a fab print and a Granny Weatherwax hat on the pocket. It may have been the residual anaesthetic, but I was incredibly touched and a little weepy with it. GW is a heroine of mine and the most perfectly realised female character ever written by a man. That she'd remembered that and got it worked into a handmade gift was a truly generous thing. 

Apart from getting weepy over an infinite number of things (Mabel giving me a headbutt, Thor bringing me a gift of wool from my stash, N tweaking my toes as he walks past, the end of Ghosts, episodes of The Repair Shop), what have I been doing with myself?

Reading, making plans for next year, filling notebooks with these plans, making a sourdough starter, watching Christmas films. Chair yoga. Writing. Playing games. 

When I was little, this betwixtmas time would have been spent in much the same way (minus the yoga and sourdough, plus arguing with my sister), with the excitement of New Years Eve growing every day. For NYE was when we were sent off to stay with my maternal grandparents. We'd arrive in the afternoon so we had time for the usual rituals: visiting the tiny graveyard, playing Poohsticks from the bridge over the stream, exploring the small church that we never tired of, feeding the ducks in the farm pond across the road from their house. 

Dinner would be early and we'd be allowed to stay up, trying small nips of things from the leatherette-clad bar in the corner of their living room - advocaat is my Proustian madeleine - watching Clive James being incredibly erudite and witty as the clocks chimed 12 and we chomped a supper of biscuits and cheese. 

The next day would be our second Christmas as they were always elsewhere for the official one. Our parents would arrive, heroically hiding hangovers, a huge joint of beef would be roasted and there would be presents, crackers, squabbling and people trying to politely refuse the homemade wine my Grandad devoted hours to making but that always tasted like vinegar at best. 

I was lucky with my childhood Christmasses and the hardest lesson with growing up is that these can never come again. Both grandparents are dead, to begin with, second Christmas is a distant memory and besides, the wench is middle aged. This does not make me sad or melancholy though: this year, as I turn these memories over, I am just grateful for all the ones I've had and all the ones I hopefully have to come. 

All things considered, I'm having a pretty good end to a year that's been a test for all of us. There was no right or wrong way of passing this test - it is enough to have endured it. I'm impatient for recovery, for the new year, for change, as are so many, but I'll step carefully over 2020, rather than my usual full headlong pelt forwards. And I'll raise a glass to all of it. 

Cloud Rambling

A week into my own personal lockdown and I haven’t yet cracked and run amok through the house screaming “will I never see OUTSIDE again?” Which is a bonus.  

As a person who is mostly introverted and who enjoys copious amounts of quiet time on her own, I was always going to be suited to this. I can happily wile away whole days inside, making bits of nonsense, reading, writing, watching, baking (not so much any more - more on that story later), pondering the garden or paint colours for inside, staring into space...

At the weekend I put together a Christmas wreath made from pom-poms and lights. It’s extremely cheerful, extremely gaudy and makes me happy every time I look at it (although I’m kind of wishing I’d cleaned the windows before I hung it). It also meant I could claim my day’s work done and spend the rest of it reading the paper. 

Behold! The Wreath of Gaudiness! 

We’ve played scrabble, watched films, cooked, played with the cats. I’ve bottled my damson gin, jarred my damson jelly and labelled the runner bean chutney for N to deliver while I’m in hospital. 

Last night we watched Batman: the Dark Knight because I am nothing if not behind on my superhero film watching. 3 thoughts have stayed with me: 

1. Bale’s Batman makes me laugh every time he speaks. His voice is so ridiculous! I can’t hear him without imagining him having to break off mid stirring speech to cough and choke. I don’t find him convincing (however he was excellent as Dick Cheney in Vice).

2. Heath Ledger could have been given more airtime. He was astonishing as the Joker and leaving him dangling at the end was a waste.

3. This film does not pass the Bechdel test. Poor Maggie Gyllenhaal portraying the only rounded, fully inhabited female character and she gets killed off? You, Christopher Nolan, did a disservice there, regardless of plot. 

In fact, her character's death made me almost as cross as the Black Widow's did in Avengers: Endgame. Yeah, great, just bring the most interesting character to a stop, why don't you. Leave us with the anodyne Captain America, sure. You didn't just miss a MASSIVE trick there at all. 

Ahem. 

Back to the matter in hand: lockdown. 

There's no doubt that I've been bolstered in mood by a walk my friend and I took the day before I had to sequester away like some medieval nun in a hermitage. We parked up on the side of the Malverns, by Holywell (appropriate, no?), in the mist and murky gloom, and walked up. And up. And up. Admiring the way the muted daylight brought out the russets of the beech leaves, the reds of the berries and the silver of the birches in stark contrast. There was colour everywhere we looked, despite the lack of light. 

And then. Oh friends, then we broke above the cloud into...glorious sunshine! The snaking, ridged spine of the hills leading across the landscape to the almost-touchable Iron Age hill fort was picked out by a sharp light that made the whistling wind feel less bitter. Over to our right, Herefordshire countryside laid itself out, shaking off the damp and glowing greenly. 

To our left, the cloud brushed up against the side of the hills, forming a white carpet so thick and solid looking that we felt we could walk on it. Occasionally bits would be blown up and over the path, momentarily blurring the edges and making me think of moorland mists, the Hound of the Baskervilles and other appropriately Gothic things. 

hill fort in the distance, cloud sneaking over the top of 
the hill to see what was on the other side. 

An hour later, when my thighs gave a wobble at the longest walk I've done in the past 18 months, we headed back down in search of soup, cake and a bookshop. Once I got home, I sat myself down and read HotB, from under a blanket while the mist curled itself against the windows. It was perfect, post-walk, misty day reading. 

And baking? I did promise more on that, didn't I? In truth, I've hesitated to write about this because there is nothing more boring than hearing about other people's diets, but as it's the basis for a big shift in my life, I'm going to. 

Some years ago, I gave up dairy (apart from eggs) in a desperate attempt to bring my eczema under control. And for a time, it worked. Until it didn't and the eczema crept into my scalp, developed on my knees and generally made life itchy and miserable. That alone was enough to make me consider the next step, but when coupled with some other minor, but irritating, health problems, I figured the time had come to bite the (dairy-free) bullet, not to mention my credit card, and book to to see a nutritional therapist. 

I'd not had much luck with doctors, you see. 

Many hours of research later and I finally found a non-woo therapist. And by non-woo, I mean someone who didn't think kale was the answer to everything, who didn't think that fasting would cure my ills or that I should replace my meals with smoothies, who didn't suggest crystals as anything other than something nice to look at, or that I should engage with dream therapy. I wanted someone with a solid grounding in science and a healthy understanding of human nature as well as nutrition. 

Luckily, I found her. Unluckily, the first thing she suggested I quit was gluten. 

Oh bread! Toast in the mornings, sandwiches at lunch, garlic bread with dinner! Naans with curry! Muffins with eggs! Pasta morning noon and night! Cakes, biscuits and other tasty goodnesses! Goodbye to you all, my lifelong delicious friends! Yes, I have been that dramatic; ain't I a peach to live with? In my defence, it is a big step for me: I come from a solid family who's answer to a bad day was crumpets, my favourite part of a roast dinner when growing up was a slice of bread smothered in gravy and my Dad had a second breakfast of lemon curd sandwiches when he was working (he was a landscape gardener, so definitely burned it off throughout the day). 

I could go into the many reasons why this is a recommended first step, but I won't because I don't want to bore you all. Suffice to say, I am no longer eating peanut butter on toast for breakfast and my energy levels have rocketed. Heartburn has disappeared. Bloating is a distant memory. The eczema? It takes 4-6 weeks for the skin to replace itself, so the jury is still out but I feel so much better. Possibly mainly because I'm taking control. And that's got to be worth it. 

I'm still having proper stuffing on Christmas Day though. 

This is likely to be my last lengthy post pre-Christmas. My op is next Tuesday and I imagine I won't be up to anything like this, let alone coherent enough to write it. Thank you all for popping by my tiny corner of the internet, commenting or just reading and moving on. I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a very merry new year as we say goodbye to this sod of a year. 

I've not been told I have to give up the damson gin, so I'm not. 

The warning is necessary. 

My Week in...Sounds

Laura Marling on the car stereo. Oh, but she just keeps getting better! I've been listening to her albums in sequence and you can chart her growth and ability throughout the tracks. Just wonderful, thoughtful, unpretentious music. 

My parents laughing over a distanced dinner as we saw each other for the last time this year. 

The sound of my work key turning in the lock for the last time this year. 

The ding-dong of the doorbell as the blessed delivery man brought unto me my replacement phone. See also the happiest of noises the phone makes when I turn it on and end my unplanned digital detox. 

The pingpingping of said phone, reactivated with my sim, bringing up a host of notifications. WhatsApp, in particular, was on fire the week I was without, as our quiz group made arrangements for our festive Murder Mystery evening. 

The sound of the knife cutting through fresh stems of coriander as I make myself a soup for home-based lunches this week, accompanied by the release of that lovely fresh smell. 

The little "stamp" of Mabel's feet on the grass outside as she tries to catch something invisible amongst the blades. She rears up like an arctic fox and then STAMP go her tiny front paws. At least 5 times a night, without fail. And without fail it makes me laugh. 

My grumpy Matroyshka are reluctant to concede to the festive

spirit but they have allowed a string of tiny lights along their section

of the bookcase...

All I Want for Christmas?

 A decision of the utmost kind was made last week as we decided not to go for a tree this year. Part of me hates this but part of me is also glad. Mabel has grown to the length of a roadside atlas but she still, judging by the way she tries to sit on my chest in the morning, thinks she is tiny and palm-sized. Knowing her nature, there is no way she'd resist getting up inside a tree. And knowing Christmas trees, there is no way it would still be upright every morning.  

It felt like a level of stress we could do without this year. 

So instead, I treated myself to some tiny lights strung on copper wire to decorate the bookshelves. This weekend, I may hang some baubles from curtain rails, as well as some more lights. Candles are dotted around and, thanks to the judicious use of museum wax, they can't be knocked over by small, curious  and not at all malevolent paws. 

I shall miss hanging up the dinosaur though. And my Nan's weird 50s polar bear. And continuing the tradition of buying one new ornament a year, started 22 years ago when my son was only 6 months old. But I figure the world will not stop just because I don't buy a novelty glittery sloth clutching a piece of holly. 

Last year, we had our lovely stripy Loki to keep us company. The way he would fall asleep on the tender part of your leg, gradually allowing his full weight (and he was a hefty boy) to turn your limb numb was a real sign of affection. Or cold. It was hard to tell which. 

Sadly he went to the great sandbox in the sky just as lockdown #1 bit. Now we have Mabel, who is slender and slight and altogether too flighty for sitting on knees for longer than 2 minutes. She has the attention span of a butterfly and the ears of a bat. I have already purchased her Christmas toy of a pudding on a string with a bell and some feathers. She has no idea what time of year it is but she knows that this pudding must SUBMIT to her will and claws. 

I am feeling rather smug and ahead of myself though: last night I wrote all my Christmas cards, today I shall post them, I've delegated all remaining present buying to N as I've finished getting what I need from the shops (my side of the family is all done *smug level increasing*). I even found time to buy myself a stack of secondhand books, but then, the world could be burning and I'd still find time to nip into a bookshop. 

The cats are currently out of their tiny minds with joy as I'm making pompoms for a door wreath (oh yes, the whimsy is strong in this one). For every 2 I make for the door, I make one for them to bat around and tear apart with all the ferocity of a lion attacking a wildebeest on the Serengeti. 

 

N reminded me yesterday, with the gift of flowers, that we are now exactly 18 months into living here. A time that has both flown by and stretched out to eclipse all other time. I can remember we lived separately and in different places, it just feels like another lifetime ago. 

Partly this is down to my own ill health. Beset by a number of ailments that doctors either scratched their heads over or snorted and told me to stop being dramatic, it has not been the easiest of 18 months. BUT. I am from sturdy Lancashire stock: lying around bemoaning my fate is Not Allowed and would probably make the assorted Doris's and Gladys's in my genealogy spin so hard in their graves, buildings would topple. So I am looking for answers and cures where I can providing no one uses the phrases "clean eating", "crystal therapy" or "this tea tasting like manure will really detox your liver". 

So today I see a nutritional therapist and on the 22nd I go into hospital to have a part of me removed that's responsible for some of the problems. Merry Christmas! 

This obviously means self-isolating for 2 weeks (from next Tuesday) and then not being fit enough for the usual round of families etc. Do you know what? I am completely happy with this. My op is at a small private hospital 10 minutes away (it was that or the choice of 2 huge public hospitals 40 minutes away), which means N can get to wave through the window on a daily basis - although I suspect I'll be booted out by Christmas Day - and then, oh then!, I get to REST. 

Oh yes friends, REST. Properly, staying in bed, no-lifting-heavier-than-a-kettle, no gallivanting, REST. After the 1st 2 weeks, Covid situation allowing, I can welcome visitors to my bedside with an air of regal suffering. I shall be gracious in my acceptance of gifts and good wishes with an air of benevolent, plucky elegance. 

Plus I shall off my face on some massive painkillers, so you know, it's all good.

 

T'was the week before Christmas...

And all the creatures were stirring. Especially in the city. Popped into Marks and Spencers the other day to get myself a sandwich and was confronted by a sea of people panic-buying musical tins of biscuits, umpteen packets of festive Percy Pigs* and enough ham to sink battleships. No one apparently considering whether beleaguered relatives (also out panic buying novelty socks, festive jumpers and crackers filled with tiny screwdriver sets, blunt metal nail files and corkscrews apparently designed for mice) actually want the musical tins of biscuits. What will happen to them all after the contents have been eaten? Doesn't bear thinking about but I do wonder what archaeologists of the future will make of it all.

Our social calendar has been full to bursting recently with friend's parties, work parties, random gatherings and family birthdays. So much so it was a relief when one was cancelled last Sunday. Whilst sending my commiserations over their illness, it was all I could do not to whoop with joy. My Sunday was freed up for the first time in weeks! What to do, what to do?

Obviously, to do was to head to the allotment. Also for the first time in weeks thanks to rain/illness
/busyness.

Getting there I felt I should have been depressed at the sight of the site. Everything I've planted this year has rotted away; beaten down by the rain before they had chance to get past the seedling stage, or even sprout a shoot or two. Luckily, from the moment I got the site, I'd decided to treat it as an experiment and not get downhearted over failures. If you're coming from a position of knowing nothing and achieving nothing, it's easier to rise up from it.

And besides, this time of year exposes the colourful bones of the place, which is rather wonderful even without things growing as they should.

We didn't spend long there. Enough to hack back the brambles, finally stripped of fruit and leaves (see clump of wildness above), and dig over another of the beds so the frost and cold can do the work of breaking it down. I will admit that it was kind of disheartening to stand on the ground and hear the leaden squelch of mud underfoot. It's been so wet! Turning over the soil was like lifting a mini boulder with each forkful. I tell myself that means I'll soon have sculpted arms. Apparently this is A Thing all women should want. I merely want functional ones.  

Work is nearly done for the year - just one more day to go. Looking forward to the return in January as our new office will be completed and we'll be moving in. Today I spent a couple of hours painting the newly plastered walls. I paint fast but not well and with so much splash back, the only way I'd have been more covered in paint would be if I'd tipped the pot over me. Colleagues have had a good laugh at my expense. 

This year's gifts are a mix of brought and handmade, the latter involving pomegranate gin, my own boozy mincemeat and little chocolate & peanut butter cookies. Labels have been made for all of them, my personal favourite being for the gin. 

There were also hats for nieces and sisters (including the in law ones) but Thorcat has an obsession with wool - and I mean stare-at-me-while-I-knit-in-most-unnerving-and-unblinking-fashion obsession - and he managed to hook them out of their hiding place while I was at work, leaving himself free to slowly pick them apart with his claws. So there are no hats and I am most unimpressed. Also, slightly worried as he stares at me the same way when I twist my hair round my fingers. Am convinced I'm going to wake up one morning to find my scalp on the bedroom floor. We have adopted a psychopath.

Tomorrow night, we have our annual festive scrabble night, which is exactly like our normal scrabble night but with added mince pies, then my parents are over on Sunday to celebrate my Mum's birthday, even though she doesn't really celebrate it because it's so close to Christmas and we've already had 5 family birthdays in the last month, and our final bit of socialising is a night of Sharpe at a friends. Both she and the Boyfriend are shocked that I've never seen Sharpe (what's the point of something with Sean Bean in it if he doesn't die heroically?), so I'm being forced into it. Chilli has been promised to make me stay. 

There may well be a book post (I used to do these with my old blogs and I enjoyed them) before the end of the year but in the meantime, may your next week be festive in whichever way you prefer it to be. 

Merry Christmas!


*okay, that was just me