Santa came to Knodishall

We had a good Christmas Day, quiet, uneventful, plenty to eat, lots of chat about this and that, a game of His and Hers Logo, in which Rachel, Ally and I decided the girls questions were much much harder than the boys questions but thanks to Col, Brian and Martin getting muddled over the difference between a Cream Horn and a open Tart ( Ha Ha) us girls won by one question. Success!

We unwrapped pressies and various family  brought me a total of 26 - you read that right - 26 books from my wish list, with everybody wondering where on earth we will put them in our little bungalow and me assuring them that shelves full of books will make excellent insulation. Our eldest got Col a new phone which he will struggle with for days as it's touch screen and  his fingers are not very accurate. I had a new bigger A-Z book to copy my old Book of Books read 1971 -2015 into. As the old book contains several 1000 titles, it will take me a while to copy them all over - keep me busy for days - or weeks. Col had an Elvis CD - I shall leave the house when he plays that! From Penny Pincher penfriends came all sorts of gifts ranging from a scented sachet to some material for making a cushion. Thank you everyone.

My favourite thing about the days after a family Christmas is all the left-over food, which may sound odd but it means that for the next week I don't need to think about " what shall we have for dinner". After 36 years of marriage it's not the actual cooking dinner that I get fed up with but the thinking about what to cook.


Right, Col is watching a canal-boat DVD that I found for him and I shall go and put the kettle on and find the first of the leftovers for lunch  - a ham salad roll and some banoffee I think.

Thank you to everyone for all the good wishes for a Happy Christmas. I hope your day was as nice as ours.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Happy Christmas to everyone out there in blogworld

Hope you all have a wonderful day

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Advent 24 - All doors open

Christmas Eve and door 24 on the National Trust advent calendar has been opened.On the back it explains where each photo is taken. It's been a good calendar, nice and Christmassy.

Door 24 is willow reindeer outside the NT property of Wallington in Northumberland.

As I didn't want to have to venture to the shops today I went to Tesco early yesterday morning, left home at 8.45, not much traffic on the road then going down the hill into Saxmundham there were cars queueing to get into Waitrose carpark. I turned into Tesco carpark and it was also almost jam-packed - everyone had decided to dash out early. Inside was heaving with people loading trollies as if the world was ending. I didn't need much and they had loads of staff working - all tills open - and I was in and out in half an hour so home by just after 9.30. Col was surprised to see me so soon, I was just glad to be home out of the mayhem.

Apart from the books photographed for yesterdays post, there are also some children's Christmas books packed away waiting the move, one that I hope we still have is the book of the poem which of course had to be read on Christmas eve. Just in case it's been a while since you read it - here it is

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I'm now off to cook a ham, make a vegetarian quiche, a biscuit base for a desert and wrap some bacon around the chipolatas.
I  hope Santa fills your stocking with lovely things
Back Tomorrow, briefly
Sue

Advent photo 23 - Christmas books

Almost at the end of the Advent photos and in the absence of lovely snowy scenes I'm dredging the barrel to find something Christmassy to photograph.

So, here we have my pile of Christmas books. They live from one year to another on top of the bookshelves,

but will be moving with us, although the shelves are fixed and staying here.
The books have been gathered from charity shops and second-hand book sales over the years. Some are children's books and many are books with snippets of information about various aspects of Christmas - they came in handy when I compiled quizzes for the Suffolk Smallholders Newsletter. Lots of ideas for making food gifts or decorating cakes in some. If you've never read Jilly Cooper - How to survive Christmas, I can recommend it to make you smile. A Suffolk Christmas is one of a series produced to cover many of the counties of England. Unplug The Christmas Machine comes from the States from Amazon many years ago.
After taking the photo The Oxford Book of Christmas Poems stayed off the shelves to be looked at last night and I came across a poem by John Betjeman that I hadn't seen before.

Here are just 4 lines from the poem Advent 1955
..........................We raise the price of things in shops
                          We give plain boxes fancy tops
                           And lines which traders cannot sell
                           Thus parcell'd go extremely well.........................
So nothing changes! 

The jigsaw puzzle is finished just in time to be cleared away, all 1000 pieces present and correct - you can never be 100% sure when buying secondhand.

If my friend doesn't want it, we will probably put it back on Ebay.

I have been BAD - I bought myself some books from The Book People as my Christmas present from Col and have read one already! Well I had(!) to because I also bought the same set of 3 for a friend for Christmas and I needed to check they were OK. They were an author I'd not come across before  (from Canada- though born in England- writing books set in this country) but as they are crime fiction set in WWII I knew they were just right for my friend. The set of 3 were £4.99 and the author is Maureen Jennings. The first in the series is Season of Darkness. I can't say it was the best written book I've ever read -a few American-isms -  but saying that I did enjoy it and it's quite fat so took me several evenings to read. The 4th is due out next August and she has also written another historical mystery series set in Canada. My friend doesn't read this blog - she says- so I've not given the game away!

Back with the last of the advent photos tomorrow
Sue

Advent 22 Honey roasted spiced nuts for the hampers

We have another very windy day today but very mild again, I had a search for snowdrops but none here yet  but we have got some primroses out already.

Thank you for all the comments yesterday about Strictly and Greenery.


By posting about what I've been making to put in the hampers for our 2 sisters and brothers-in-law I've totally spoiled the surprise for my sister who does read this, (sorry L! and hope your cold has gone) Col's sister reads only rarely so she's probably not seen any of the contents.

Here's one more thing I made - Honey roasted spiced nuts 

These are exceedingly more-ish and it was a wonder any of them got into the bags for the hampers.
To make them I just put some runny honey in a bowl and added a little cumin,coriander,paprika and chili powder. Stirred in the nuts and spread them on baking parchment on a baking sheet. They had 10 minutes in a fairly hot oven,stirred them round and then another 10 minutes(though 5 minutes would have been better!)

I've enjoyed making things to fill the two baskets and thought I would do the same next year but of course we won't have the garden and all the wonderful fruit  BUT looking on the bright side I will have access to cheap stuff off Ipswich market and from Aldi and Asda.

Our estate agent rang our buyers to see if they knew about a moving date yet and it seems it will be mid March as they have to wait for access for some of the money they need. The weather men keep saying we are more likely to get snow at Easter than Christmas and Easter will be the weekend after moving so I rather hope they are not right.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Advent 21 -Greenery and candles

Today is St Thomas' Day and as the rhyme says
" St Thomas Grey, St Thomas Grey, longest night and shortest day"
so the winter solstice is here and this is my day to  bring in  some bits of green stuff from the garden and to start lighting a few candles each day. We have rosemary, bay and the relation of holly that doesn't have prickles, we have a variegated holly too but what few berries it had have long gone. Then there are some light green conifer bits for contrast. My flower arranging is the shove it in a jug method but it does cheer the house up a little.

 I forgot to mention the Strictly Come Dancing final. I was, as they say, " gobsmacked" when they announced the winner as I thought Kevin and Kellie were sure to win after their 2 perfect scores. I've been voting for Jay -so cute!-  all along ( it's free on line - I'm not daft enough to use my mobile!) so I was pleased that he had won. How will we survive without Strictly 'til next September ( joking folks) and we will have to go back to watching Look East at 6.30 as well.
We didn't bother with Sports Personality Of The Year. but wasn't surprised to hear that Andy Murray won it - such a shame that he talks all in one boring sounding tone when being interviewed, I bet he's not like that when talking to friends.

This morning I've been bread making as we were getting a bit low and also pulled the insides out of 2 pheasants that we were given yesterday. We'll have Mrs for dinner tonight and Mr who was a bit bigger will go in the freezer. Our local cock pheasant has so far avoided all 3 shoots they have had in the nearest woods, which is handy as he clears up all the seed that the great-tits chuck out of the seed feeder. I moaned at him this morning as he was outside shouting just as it got light.
It was a nice bright morning but the wind is getting up as I write and there is rain on the way, luckily  my washing went out at 8 and was dry by noon. Once again we have missed out on all the heavy rain in Wales and Cumbria and although it is a bit colder today still no where near the norm for December.

Col went for Drinks and Nibbles at the second home that had the HUGE food delivery, but he said there wasn't much sign of tons of food. All the people from all the second homes and big landowners from all around were there but as he got  a lift  with our elderly friend who had to get back to his wife, he had an excuse not to stay long. (She's the lady who was in Norwich hospital for months and Col drove our friend there a few times. She is home now but not really very well, they are managing without help despite him being over 80 and having to get her up ready to go to dialysis at 7am, 3 times a week).

Thanks for all the comments yesterday -  So it wasn't just my blog where the followers vanished - Phew. But having gone down there is a new follower so hello to Lin and welcome back to Deb- who also lost followers at the weekend.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Advent 20 - Viscum Album + where have they gone?

Something odd happening over on the followers pictures yesterday. It was 334 at the beginning of the day then later 9 people had un-followed  and it was down to 325 - very strange but Bye Bye - whoever you were!...........wonder what I said to upset them,surely not my mention of going to chapel?


 When we move I won't miss living near the pylons but I will miss getting Gridline through the post. It's the magazine posted out 4 times a year  by The National Grid to landowners who have pylons or wires on their land. It's free and also has some interesting articles in it.

This time there was  a piece about Mistletoe - Viscum Album. I always used to buy some each year but haven't done for several years now. When we had it I would always squidge some berries onto our oldest apple tree in the hope it would  start to grow there. Of course it never did. We rarely see any growing around here, it's probably too dry but it grows profusely in the old orchards of Herefordshire, Worcestershire,Gloucestershire and Somerset. Tenbury Wells is one of the main centres of growing and harvesting and they have a festival and auctions in early December each year. - Maybe another thing to add to the places to visit.
 Mistletoe was worshipped by the Druids as a symbol of fertility and because it was considered a pagan plant it was banned by the early Christian Church. It is poisonous if used in excess but has been used in herbal remedies for centuries and can still be bought as a herb tea - don't fancy it myself.

 Our elderly friend  was up at the second home across the fields to see the owners ( he checks the house when they are not there......... 40 weeks of the year!). It's owned by a lawyer from London. While he was there they had a Waitrose delivery for Christmas. They are staying there for 10 days before flying out to South Africa to see the cricket. The WHOLE van was their stuff!!
How the other half live!

Will You be the 1 millionth page view today?

Back tomorrow
Sue
(Hope no-one else vanishes from the followers bar)