Christmas Eve

Sausage Rolls today (cheating with ready made puff pastry)

and the base of the trifle, ready to finish tomorrow.
Our son and new wife, recently back from the mini-honeymoon called in yesterday with some wedding photos on a memory stick.

There was actually a photo of me that didn't make me cringe!
 and look what Col did on his facebook page after a bit of photo-editing (NOT airbrushing!)

Colin Cuthbert with Sue Cuthbert.·

A privilege to be married to this lady. Happy Christmas

Oldest daughter commented "Soppy!!"









Anyway, here I am, a 61 year old Mum of 3, Grandmother of 2, wishing you all a

Happy Christmas

Back Soon
Sue

Thursday and Friday

On Thursday we delivered one hamper of goodies to my sister. I said they needed to keep it somewhere cool but as their boiler had just gone wrong this may well be anywhere in the house! Hope they get it fixed soon but they've got in a stock of coal for the fire just in case.
We called in at the Gift Shop on the way home, so many pretty things - I managed to avoid buying anything except a photo frame for the picture of a one-day-old Florence that our youngest gave us when we were there on Monday.
Then a tour of the charity shops in Stowmarket but I didn't see anything I wanted or needed so we had lunch out - a rare treat - instead.
This morning the cheese straws have been made. They always look awful but taste good. I do wish I could roll out to an even thickness and cut to an even length, but It's never going to happen.

 

 I'll add the recipe to separate recipe page.
Sausage rolls will be made tomorrow.
I'd better go and get some cream as a traditional trifle has been requested - with multi-coloured sugar strand sprinkles of course.

Back Soon
Sue

Winter Solstice

When we went walking in the wood a few weeks ago a small branch of holly "fell" off a bush just as we walked by! How strange was that?
The holly is now indoors with bay and rosemary from the garden for the Winter Solstice and candles will be lit tonight for the first time.

 The older I get the more I look forward to this day when we know the days will slowly lengthen and spring will come around again, looking forward is the only thing to do.


I'd not come across this poem until recently, and now I can't remember where I found it.


The Shortest Day
by
Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.


Back Soon
Sue

PS The charity shop came up trumps with something to put the things I'm making for the hampers into. A Christmas tree shaped box and small gold filigree basket thingy with lid. Both on their Christmas table and reduced to half price. Excellent.

A few mince pies and a lot of library books

I wasn't going to make enough mince pies to feed an army, but look what happened. This is 1lb flour and the recipe for sweet shortcrust is on my separate recipe page about half way down. They are all in the freezer to be shared around various family over different festive days.

A large heap of library books  were collected on Friday, lots that had been ordered have turned up all at once, goodness knows when I'll have time to read all these. The trouble is I'm now following lots of bookish blogs, I spot a book that looks interesting, hop over to the library site to see if they have it then instead of making a note somewhere for the future I press the Reservation button and end up with a lot to read.

'Lake Wobegon Day's is one that was mentioned somewhere, no idea what it is. Angela Thirkell - 'The Headmistress' is another Vintage Modern Classic reprinted in November. 'Christmas Around the Village Green' by Dot May Dunn is a memoir. 'A poem for every night of the Year' is a children's poetry book I wanted to look through. 'Island on the Edge' by Anne Cholawo - about life on Soay. 'High Mortality of Doves' is a new crime novel by Kate Ellis.  'The English Year' another book just to look through and the small book in the middle is an old Local Interest book titled '........and over here' memories about the USAF airmen when they were here in 1944.
And Whoop! Whoop! On Friday I  found another Persephone for £1.50 in the Samaritans charity shop in town. 

 Persephone 50 - Hilda Bernstein - The World that was Ours. Not a nice grey one, but one of their cheaper Classics but as my mum used to say "beggars can't be choosers". At the same time I also picked up this little gem for 50p.

It was published in 1949 and has several black and white photo plates. What I like are lots of quotes from writings of each period. This may well have been a school reference book as Batsford did lots in this style right through to the 1970s.


Back Soon
Sue

Christmas dinner for £10...........unless................

.........................you are 'sniffy' about frozen food.

I had never in my life bought frozen roast potatoes until this year. After all, why would I, we were self-sufficient in vegetables and most years Christmas dinner was completely home produced.
 Then came town life  and when I was home alone for 7 weeks and fancied roast potatoes, I didn't have any spuds in the house and anyway it seemed silly to par-boil and roast 2 potatoes. So I splashed out 79p on a bag of roasties from Aldi. And found they were perfectly fine and only 30 minutes in the oven. Then I tried parsnips and they were OK too.
So when I saw this Special Buy advertised at the local Co-op I had no hesitation in buying.

Turkey breast joint, roast potatoes and parsnips. Yorkshire puds and Brussels sprouts (Hmmm not sure about these) and a gi-normous Viennetta. £10 the lot. They have topped up the freezer and will be very handy after Christmas.
I bet a lot of people will throw up their hands in horror at a whole meal from the freezer, but surely this could be one way to save a heck-of-a-lot of money and still be traditional.
 

Back Soon
Sue

The Mystery of The Christmas Tea Towel

I opened the box of Christmas decorations
and what did I find on the top

This

Where did it come from?
Someone must have given it to me for Christmas last year...........
But who?
And why was it in with the Christmas decorations rather than with the tea-towels? *
I have no idea, I hope I said thank you to whoever gave it to me - how embarrassing .

Back Sooner or Later
Sue

PS Thank you for all the comments, we are still talking about the wedding and different photos keep popping up on Facebook. I'll probably share more - 'til everyone is fed up with them!

*Actually I think I know why it was in with the decorations........it was probably because so many other things had already been packed in boxes for the move.

Winter Wedding

On December 9th 2016 MC married RJ and she became another Mrs C just like me! So happy to have another Mrs C in the family, wish Col's mum was still alive she would have been so happy too.

Weddings may be much more complicated to organise than "back in our day" but they are much more fun!
Here are some pictures from the winter wedding (although the weather was unseasonably warm)

Caught this photo of Col and our son, just before we went into church. The Best man W - who has been son's best friend since they were 9 -  is behind and between M and Col and over on the left is Col's brother A - if he had noticed he was being photographed he would probably have taken a step backwards out of shot!

The wedding had a Christmas theme and we sang Ding Dong Merrily on High for the final hymn

Bride and Groom

Our Eldest, her husband and  Jacob

Our wonderful family ( minus Florence who had finally fallen asleep after being so grumpy all through the service  that B had to take her out into the vestry)

A choir entertained everyone with Christmas carols on arrival at the reception venue while M & R went off to Leiston Abbey Ruins for special photos

Extremely yummy Wedding cake which became the desert for the meal, thereby saving M & R the cost of an extra course!

The Proudest Grandad in the world with Jacob and Florence

The two little cousins get to know each other!

Son photobombing photo of his niece and nephew

Jacob enjoying his meal!

 

The newly weds first dance, wonder if anyone anywhere has danced their first dance to "All I want for Christmas is  you"!

A Good Time was had by all.

Thank you for comments over the last few days, I must get round to replying properly.

Back Soon
Sue

The Christmas Basket

Yesterday we were at the wedding of our son and new daughter-in-law. Pictures will follow ASAP.

With a wedding in December and a couple who love Christmas  (their first dance was to "All I want for Christmas is you!) there were lots of festive themes going on and this is my lovely gift from the newly weds.

So pretty.................just hope I can keep it alive a bit longer than other poinsettias I've had!

Back soon, with Happy Photos
Sue

PS Co-incidentally, just after writing this, I came across the following on this months Home Farmer email

Care of Poinsettias

These are tropical plants so don’t leave them in a cold car when you’ve bought it whilst you do other shopping. Get it home immediately.
Place in a well-lit area near a window. It needs bright, indirect light for at least 6 hours a day.
Bright direct sun will fade the red leaves.
Avoid drafts and try to keep a regular temperature of 65-70⁰
The most common cause of fatality is over watering. Only water when dry and do not let them sit in water as this encourages mold and moss.
You do not need to feed your plant when in bloom. Once it’s finished blooming water sparingly and feed once a month

Just One Tradition

Just one Christmas Tradition here............... there has to be a copy of the Radio Times in the house ( as they would say on the Beeb......other TV. listings magazines are available................ but not as good!)

As soon as I spot it in the shops it comes home to be examined closely.

I'm always hopeful that there will be some gems among the repeats.

A quick glance through and this is what I spotted

The Strictly Come Dancing Final

Wild Tales From The Village

Call The Midwife

The Christmas Countryfile

A new Midsummer Murders

10 episodes of special alumni editions of University Challenge

The series finals of Countdown

Kirsties Handmade Christmas 

Countrywise

New series of Father Brown

Carols from Kings

Still Open All Hours

Jonathon Creek

Guy Martin Cycling Home for Christmas

 Of course some clash........... typical.........no clever recording type TV here, and some I shall probably miss as we will be out visiting.

From this you will see I like crime and quizzes and have the attention span of a gnat as almost  nothing here is longer than an hour!

Back Soon

Sue

The Christmas Post

All my cards are now winging their way around the country, Bath, Chesterfield, Colchester and other places in Essex, A windy Scottish island, Manchester, Birmingham and some closer to home in Suffolk too.

The very  local cards have gone in here

 How lucky we are to be able to post something and know that it will arrive ( usually anyway) and even if postage costs have gone up a lot it's still nice to send cards once a year.
 Some have arrived from various places too and a mystery parcel from the windy island .......thank you W 😊.

We went to see Col's cancer nurse specialist yesterday to find out what to expect next.
She said that Colin carries on with the tablets and once a week blood tests until early March, he may feel well, or if the Lymphoma increases too quickly he might not. Then he has another bone marrow sample.After that they decide when to do the donor stem cell transplant, which will take place at Addenbrookes hospital and he might need to be in for 5 - 8 weeks! .......Oh good grief! I see I will get to know the awful A14 between Stowmarket and Cambridge very well indeed.
 Seems to me only one thing is certain about this type of cancer............no one really knows exactly what's going to happen and when. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, keep calm and carry on!

Oh BTW do you remember that lovely NECKLACE which I said would need  altering with a shorter chain? Well Col had a brainwave and looked through the necklaces hanging in the charity shop, found one with a suitable clasp and links, snipped the relevant bits off the charity shop chain, made the lovely necklace chain shorter and with the help of small pliers and a bright light, fixed on clasp......et Voila! Cost £1.
 I didn't marry him just for his pretty face!

Back Soonish
Sue

Winter Walk

"I need a bit of nature" was what I said yesterday morning.

Col knew a walk he used to do when he worked as a bridge inspector and had to check the footbridges over a stream on the edge of Ipswich.

And the Christmassy photo for the 7th day of December..........Holly, with berries, we saw lots of bushes all round the walk

Much of the walk was on a board-walk built to go through boggy woodland, with a small river running through, then on heath land on the edge of a golf course. It was good to get away from pavements but all the way round we could still hear the traffic rushing along the A14.

Welcome to another new follower and thank you for comments yesterday.


Back Tomorrow........probably
Sue

Winter - an Anthology and a then a book journey

This is an interesting little book made up of wintery words in prose and poetry from many different writers, from the 16th century up to 2016. Most of the more recent authors have a connection to their local Wildlife Trust and the books are raising money for those trusts. At the end of the book is a paragraph about each author.

My favourite pieces were by the more well known country writers, some live or lived in Norfolk or Suffolk. Roger Deakin, Adrian Bell and of course Ronald Blythe. Another name I recognised was Clare Leighton who was an author and illustrator using wood engravings. I know we had her book Four Hedges back when we sold country books at shows. The piece by her in this book is from The Farmers Year: A Calendar of English Husbandry. That sounds good I thought so looked it up on Amazon..........£40 and upwards .........maybe not then! 


 Spring,Summer and Autumn editions of  anthologies also edited  by Melissa Harrison  exist although the library doesn't have them in stock - oddly. I shall be suggesting  them soon


Looking up "Winter" on Amazon lead me to find this
a debut novel about Father and Son farmers in Suffolk haunted by something that happened in the past. I've ordered it from the library although there are several people waiting.
Then I was reading Random Jottings post HERE and looked to see if the library had the book she mentioned ......Jeanette Winterson - Christmas Days. I found they didn't have it in stock so hopped back to Amazon to find when it was published and spotted this...

which is described as a "Full length narrative Christmas Poem, which takes us round the world at Christmas".
If ever covers sell books I bet these two would.
Sadly the Library hasn't got this either, I'm not sure I can suggest too many - might bankrupt them!


 Welcome to new follower Lorraine and thank you for Christmas card comments yesterday.
And I have to just say how sad to see Sue at Our New Life in the Country has finished blogging after so many years. Reading her blog kept me in touch with smallholding. Will I be able to keep going for as many years as Sue did. I'm at 3½, Sue did 8 - pretty good going.Wonder who's been going longest of all the blogs I read?

Back tomorrow
Sue

Christmas cards...........making and buying,sending and receiving.

I love receiving Christmas cards. I like to display them and enjoy for as long as possible.

I have two rules about buying cards -  they must be charity cards and they must not be full price. Hypercritical? Probably.

We send about 40 cards although not that many are posted. It's the only way we keep in touch with people from where we've lived in the past.

This year I'm writing in our new address and a note about Col's treatment.......it's taking an age, mainly because I keep putting off the actual doing.
I'm certainly not short of cards to write, I counted around 100, a few hand made and the rest from January sales or from car boot sales.

 Then there is the paper craft card making stuff - I could probably turn out another 50 or so easily, and I have some lovely 3D decoupage papers and card which I bought from Craft Creations 2 years ago, specially to make nice big cards for family.

Not forgetting cross-stitch - the opportunities are endless for that craft.

Notes to self

Buy NO cards in the January sales
Use the craft stuff to make family cards in 2017
Carry on stitching cards for friends for next Christmas

Colin has now been on the special tablets for 5 days, the only side effects so far are tiredness which could also be from finishing the steroids which he was on since coming out of hospital. Neither of us can remember exactly what the doctor said about the timescale of side effects so we will ask later in the week when we see the cancer nurse.

I hope something interesting happens today to photograph or my daily advent photos will grind to a halt!

Back Tomorrow.............or not, depends
Sue

There are Christmas Fayres and then there are Christmas Fayres

Saturday at 11am we strolled round the corner to the Catholic Primary school for their Christmas Fayre and 5 minutes later we strolled home again as there was almost nothing there. A few games for children, someone selling Avon and someone else selling Usbourne books and that was about it and hardly any people.

At 1.45 we strolled half a mile round 5 corners to go to Castle Hill Church for another Christmas Fayre. It was packed loads of stalls and people

and there was a room with tables covered with BOOKS............ Oh great joy

Colin came home with a fruit cake and I came home with these

I'm not a great jewellery fan, rings yes all the time, necklaces rarely. But I just loved the different stones in this. I need to find a new shorter chain with a clasp to be able to wear it as this one doesn't undo and it's too long unless you are totally flat chested!
Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm is another British Library Crime Classic, one of the few that the library haven't got. ( I filled in the suggestion form  for several  a couple of months ago but forgot this one).
50p for the book and £1 for the necklace, a nice walk home for tea and cake and all is well with my world😊😊

Back Soon
Sue

Murder at Christmas

The Hospice charity shop near us had a big display of Christmas books for sale but most of them are chick lit happy ever after books, I'd read a couple of the Trisha Ashley ones but not really my favourite sort of reading, although there seem to be lots published each year.
A quick look on Amazon and I saw Christmas at little Beach Street Bakery; Christmas at Lilac Cottage; Christmas at the Wedding Shop; Christmas Under the Stars; The Cosy Christmas Teashop and The Christmas Promise - all new this year. 

 I really prefer a bit of crime, but hadn't really come across any Christmas crime until a couple of years ago when British Library Crime Classics re-printed  the 1930's book Mystery in White.

 Since then other publishers have joined in and I have these two from the library for my Christmas reading. On the right a book of short stories including some from modern authors, on the left another gem from the past - first published in 1947. Although I was amused to see that when first out it didn't have the word Christmas in the title.

Back Tomorrow,  as entirely unintentionally I seem to have slipped in daily advent photo mode, just like  LAST YEAR

Sue

Lost - One Advent calendar

On THIS post a couple of weeks ago I said we wouldn't be bothering with an advent calendar this year, then I found the comment by Barbara M who has a better memory than me

I remember that you had a lovely advent calendar last year from the National Trust and I imagine that you can use it again this year. I buy a $1 advent calendar with teeny, tiny chocolate pieces from Aldi.

 This is it from last year with all doors open, each little picture is a Christmassy photo from various NT houses.

 I thought it would be in the Christmas decorations box.....................but No

Then I had a brainwave, I must have put it in the big family bible to press the doors shut.

Where's the big family bible?

Somewhere in one of the 16 boxes of books under the bed I guess.

Will we be having an advent calendar this year?

Maybe not.

Back Soon
Sue


PS
Many thanks for all the comments. I love the red Lindt Lindor Chocs but haven't had any for years and have never tried the white or dark chocolate AND I had a £5 Morrisons More voucher so they were in effect .....FREE
And the best news is Colin was never that keen on chocolate and they will be much too sweet for him :-)

Treats

December 1st

Just imagine if you always spent money on what you wanted all the time, and did  special stuff every day. Then these things wouldn't be a treat

I found the big box of mixed Lindor chocs on the reduced shelf because the box is squashed, the coffee is something I've not tried before. Both of these have been popped in the cupboard for Christmas. While the pretty winter cup and saucer were found in a charity shop about 3 years ago and I use it for the month of December - just for a change.

Back Soon
Sue