Advent Day Eighteen

Hello Friends!

A classic television series from the late 1970s was called The Good Life.  It was good fun and hilarious viewing as Tom and Barbara Good gave up their affluent lifestyle to become self sufficient, much to the chagrin of their friends and neighbours Margot and Jerry Leadbetter.  It seems imbued in our comedy and television viewing history and yet there were only ever thirty episodes.

One of those episodes that sticks in my memory was when Margot Leadbetter, played by Penelope Keith, in a very upper middle class way declares that "Christmas comes in a box!" in as much as everything you need for Christmas from the tree and baubles to gifts to the Christmas feast comes delivered and you don't have to do a thing.  Well, this year, my Christmas lunch is coming in a box.  I no longer enjoy cooking and more often than not cannot be bothered to cook so I'm treating myself to Christmas dinner from COOK and hopefully tomorrow it will be delivered and ensconced in my freezer ready to just heat and eat on Christmas Day.  Long gone are the days when I would have a house full of company from Christmas Eve until New Year's Day!

Here's what's on order     

Roasted Vegetable Lasagne (Serves 4)
Roast Potatoes (Serves 4)
Portobello Mushroom Wellington (Serves 2)
Winter Vegetable Gravy (Serves 2)
Carrots with Orange & Thyme (Serves 2)
Shredded Brussels Sprouts & Buttered Leeks (Serves 2)
Maple & Thyme Roast Parsnips (Serves 2)
Nut Loaf (Serves 2)
Cranberry Sauce with Port & Orange (300g)

The lasagne is not for Christmas but it is most excellent so it's a treat.  It is the closest bought one that I have come across to match my own homemade lasagne which used to take two days to cook.  I will have four main meals between the Mushroom Wellington and Nut Roast with plenty of delicious vegetables.  A friend is getting me two sides from M&S, their Carrot and Swede Crush and Braised Red Cabbage.  I will be set to have a scrumptious Christmas dinner.  Yes, it is expensive but it is worth it and it's not as if it's an everyday occurrence.  My Christmas pudding and brandy cream are coming from Tesco.  

Now, if you want a good laugh, follow this link and watch the series of Fanny Craddock Cooks For Christmas and prepare to be shocked and incredulous at everything from the pink pussycat bow blouse with "soup strainer" sleeves to the bright green Brandy Butter Christmas tree.  It's required viewing every year for me!  Don't forget, it's all in The Booklet!  Does anyone still have a copy?

Until tomorrow . . . 

Advent Day Seventeen

Hello Friends!

One thing that is synonymous with this time of year is seasonal music.  There are essentially two types of seasonal music and both dominate their own genre at this time of year more than any other music throughout the year.  I'm talking secular and ecclesiastic.  Christmas songs and Christmas carols.  Something that sets me off is Christmas carols being referred to as Christmas songs.  Do you hear this pedant's teeth gritting?  Here's my definitions of the two:

Christmas and Advent Carols are religious hymns.  Simple as.  These days carols are all generally called Christmas carols, but technically they are divided in two:  Advent carols and Christmas carols.  As with most hymns through the year, Advent are less well known outside of a church setting, whereas Christmas carols are very well known and are often heard being sung on street corners or being whistled and hummed down the High Street.  Which is, of course, how they become called songs. which they are not.

Advent carols herald the coming of Christ, in anticipation of his birth, the most notable example and a particular favourite of mine is O Come, O Come Emanuel.  This particular recording by Enya is haunting in it's beauty

O Come O Come Emanuel

Christmas carols, on the other hand, are sung in church from Christmas and and include all the well known and favourite melodies and words.  There are so many, but a handful of the familiar and most popular include Away in a Manger, Silent Night, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, While Shepherds Watched, O Little Town of Bethlehem, The First Noel and many, many more.  My particular favourite is the processional carol Once in Royal David's City, sung here at the world famous Carols from Kings.

Once in Royal David's City

Listening on the radio, or watching this very special service is rooted in my Christmas traditions as it is with many.

So, those are Christmas CAROLS, not songs!

Christmas SONGS are the secular melodies and lyrics that have nothing to do with the religious side of Christmas but essentially everything else from presents to Father Christmas, from snowmen and sleigh rides, from reindeer to festivities and beyond. Every pop star and personality seems to release a song for Christmas in the hopes of attaining the much coveted Number One spot on the music charts on Christmas Day.  Probably the most famous Christmas song that did not make the Number One spot is 

Wham's Last Christmas 

which lost out to Bob Geldof's Band Aid charity fundraiser

Do They Know It's Christmas

and not being bitter over the ousting, the incredibly generous George Michael gave all the royalties from Wham's Last Christmas sales to the charity Band Aid.  A very magnanimous and generous gesture indeed.  

This year, it is once again in contention for the Number One spot and, if it achieves it, it will enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the song that took the longest time from its release to become the Christmas Number One and will be 39 years.  Let's hope they make it!

I have two personal favourites

Driving Home for Christmas by Chris Rea

and

Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt 

I'll leave you with this, one of the wonders of modern technology, and it will be someone's favourite

The Little Drummer Boy by Bing Crosby and David Bowie

Alexa, play Christmas music

Until next time . . . 

Advent Day Sixteen

Hello Friends!

The night is slowly aging but the dawn of a new day is still hours away.  The darkness swirls around the village, like the sludgy dregs of coffee in my mug. When the light finally pierces through it will still be dull and depressingly dark for most of the day.  The big light is often on when it should not be.  It is cold, I should be asleep but, once again, insomnia keeps me company.  This is becoming the normal pattern for me now, and I will sleep later in the day, only to be disturbed by the ringing of the phone or the calling of a courier.

The radio is on for company and once more, people go on about the Government taking away the Winter Fuel Payment from all but the most vulnerable and the impending repercussions of this cruel decision.  It was sudden and swiftly done, State Pensioners had no time to prepare, and the cost of fuel continues to soar.  It puts a dent in the budget of most of us and will affect the health of many in the coming months as people must choose between food or fuel.  Heat or Eat as it is now known.

The news is full of misery, sorrow, disaster, wars, natural disasters, an endless stream of bad news, negative energy, not what we need to be talking about or thinking about as we slip into the darkest time of year.  I scroll the news, these days I believe it is called "doomscrolling".  I actively decide to stop.  I don't need this.  Just as I lift my finger from the mouse to stop and just as I do I see that a new category of news stories rolls onto my screen.  Uplifting Stories.  Now that's more like it!  A collection of news that warms the spirits, makes us smile, brings us joy.  Stories such as a 16 foot knitted Christmas Tree to tackle loneliness, or the podcast story of a Scout Hut saved by the kindness of strangers, or the wedding saved by an hotel manager when the original plans were destroyed by Storm Darragh.  We need more like this in our news feed. We need change for the better and it is up to us to be that change.

This is Advent.  A four week period of time when Christians across the world prepare for the arrival of a new baby who will bring change.  Advent is a noun which means the beginning of an event, the invention of something, or the arrival of a person.  In a few days Advent will be over, Christmas will be here and then it will be New Year.  The time of arrival of the resolutions to be a better person, of new beginnings and fresh starts.  Within days, it becomes a time of epic failure for many as resolutions are broken. For that very reason I do not make resolutions, they set you up for failure by the very name Resolutions.  Maybe intentions is better, less cut in stone and easier to begin again with purpose.  They say it takes 30 days to break a habit so if you are making changes don't be hard on yourself if you don't get it right first time.  Don't word them setting yourself up for failure, set them up for success.  Now I'm not even sure if I am making sense, I hope you understand my rambling and cut me some slack for after all it is barely 3:30 a.m. and I am awake when I should be asleep.

There's music on the radio now, I think I'll ask the disembodied voice {Alexa} to play my Christmas playlist, and I'll be talking Christmas music tomorrow.

Until then . . . 

Advent Day Fifteen

Hello Friends!

These two photos were taken a few years ago, but how I felt taking them does not change, nor does it diminish with the passing of time.

Oh! how I miss those early morning December walks up to the bus stop to catch the ten to eight into town when the Christmas lights adorned the streets. I did not like my job, not one jot, at the JobCentre Plus, but it was a job. However, one of the few positive things, besides the cracking monthly paycheck, was the walk from my cottage in pitch dark and cold, up to the bus stop at the other end of the Smallest City where I live and past all the lights . . .

For most of the fifteen minute walk my companion was the silence, broken only by the sound of my own footsteps on the pavements. The breeze rustled through the trees on the Cross Square, and the sleepy houses that line the streets were slowly waking up to the new day that was dawning in the east. The only audible sign of human activity was a buzz of early birds in the then Post Office as people swooped in to collect their daily paper, a pouch of baccy, and a pint of milk for breakfast. The sound of their chatter spilled out in both Welsh and English on to the pavement as I walked on by to the bus that by now had come in from Fishguard, disgorged the handful of passengers working in St Davids and was now waiting the arrival of the Haverfordwest bound travellers to alight. The Christmas lights were on and I felt it was just me and the lights in this magical world of light. I close my eyes and am there once more, enveloped in the frosty cold air of a perfect winter's morning . . .

There were other magical moments too, that changed throughout the year, as five mornings a week I travelled east and five afternoons a week I travelled west . . . in Spring the hawthorn trees at the bottom of Clegyr Hill lined the road with branches full of candyfloss puffs of bridal white, and in the Autumn months were laden with bright red berries . . . the distant, snow dusted crags of the Preselis in Winter . . . the vivid yellow fields of oil rapeseed against a vibrant blue Summer sky . . . days when frost shimmered like diamonds in the pale Winter sunshine . . . days when everything melted under the burning heat of a scorching Summer sun . . . early morning dew made visible the otherwise hidden spider webs that draped the footbridge by Ocky Whites . . . in April and May the verges by the Rising Sun star spotted with clumps of fragrant Cowslips . . . Cow Parsley frothed along the hedgerows and Early Purple Orchids bloomed . . . trees, dormant over Winter came into bud, full leaf, changed colour then shed their leaves with the changing seasons of the year . . . and all the while the tide ebbed away and flowed back to Newgale with its ever changing moods that always caught the breath . . . the high, grass topped cliffs, the mile long golden sands, the bay with its ever changing hues of turquoise blue and green and grey . . . days when the sea boiled and roiled in fury, and the land and the sea and the sky merged into one big, grey mantle . . . days when thick fog rolled off the cliffs from Brawdy and spilled, like thick cream onto the bay, molding the cliffs, . . . days when the sand shimmered like burnished gold, the azure sea shone like diamonds, and the sky so clear and blue it hurt your eyes to look at it. When one tires of the view at Newgale one is tired of life . . .

and so the days rolled on, each different from the last and different from the next, but always full of beauty and wondrous surprise . . . like the coming New Year . . .

Apologies for the huge digression from the season, but the memories just started flowing and I just kept typing, a stream of conscious thought, a beacon of light in the dark days of Winter when it is so dismal we need a

gentle reminder that the light will soon be returning to the world, so therein lies the tenuous connection!

Until tomorrow . . .

Advent Day Fourteen

Hello Friends!

As I am having difficulty typing this is a very brief visit today.  Here are two of my hand painted watercolour Christmas cards I am sending this year to relatives . . . 

Do you have a favourite one?

Until tomorrow . . . 

Advent Day Thirteen

Hello Friends!

This will be a short post today.

As Christmas Day approaches so we get the Christmas Edition of the Double Issue of Radio Times.  Yes it is expensive and yes there are cheaper, even free, TV listings available but this is one tradition I am reluctant to change.  I pay the money and I am happy with my choice.  Pure nostalgia.

As of the time of typing I have not received mine but will update here with an image when it arrives.  This is an old photo from my library.

However you get your listings, whatever television service you subscribe to, the words and questions on everyone's lips are what programmes, what specials, and what films can we expect to see?

To name a few, there will be Christmas Specials for most of the popular programmes such as Call the Midwife, All Creatures Great and Small and the likes.  There will be the annual Doctor Who Christmas Special, as well as themed comedy shows such as Would I Lie to You and Outnumbered.  Quiz ahows do Christmas knock out competitions.  Then hopefully there will be a blockbuster movie or two, which will vary depending on your service.

The one that seems to be on everyone's mind this year is the Final Ever episode of Gavin and Stacey.  Love it or loathe it {most people I know love it} we are talking the most anticipated, most talked about programme probably since Who Shot JR?  

It's possibly one of, if not the best written, cast, and acted comedy shows to ever grace our screens and in case you've been living in a cave or on Mars for the past five years I'm not going to say any more than will they or won't they?

Of course, the other question is will we ever know what happened on that Fishing Trip?

Rumours abound, but the plot and what happens is one of the most closely guarded secrets since someone did shoot JR.  If you haven't seen it, it's on iPlayer and is being rerun on BBC3, Dave, and other channels.  Just check your listings.

We're being treated to a Christmas Special that will pay homage to the actors and actresses and the writers Ruth Jones and James Corden, as well as revisiting storylines that ran through the all too brief three series.  

It's been five long years since the last Christmas episode aired, but we are promised something very special on Christmas Day this year.

Until tomorrow

Advent Day Twelve

Hello Friends!

Although not of any particularly high standard, I have always enjoyed baking and do so with a reasonable level of competence for a home baker.  I have a good, basic repertoire of stand by recipes that please those who have tried them.

These include, but are not limited to the classic Victoria Sponge, a variety of sponge cakes including Coffee and Walnut, Chocolate, and Mocha, Lemon Drizzle, Seed Cake, Madeira Cake, Bara Brith and a few others, also Flaky Pastry Sausage Rolls and various breads.

Caveat: I bake, I don't decorate!

At Christmas, though, something comes over me and I go all out with everything baked goods!  Well, it used to before Parkinson's robbed me of my mojo.  These days it's all shop bought in my home.  Sad but true. 

Here's a question for the bakers out there.  When you make a sponge cake, do you weigh your ingredients by 2oz each of flour, butter and sugar to each egg or do you use the weight of two eggs method?  I find I get a better mix using the weight of two eggs method.

When I was a teenager, I baked for the local WI Market and had regular weekly orders for my sausage rolls and gingerbread, the latter from an elderly gentleman , a retired baker himself, who declared it the best gingerbread he'd ever had!

At Christmas time, there were some big orders coming in for both my mother and me.  We were going flat out with orders for Mince Pies and Sausage Rolls by the dozens!  Mum had to bake 300 mince pies for one customer alone!  No mean feat in a domestic kitchen.

One year, not so long ago, at the Eleventh Hour, I was asked for some baked goods for our cathedral St Andrew's Day Fayre.  Short notice meant it had to be from ingredients on hand, so I made a dark Gingerbread traybake cut into cubes to be sold individually.  

Little did I know my reputation was about to be trashed!

To cut a long story short, the label I provided got lost, the cake got sold as Chocolate Cake, and almost everyone said it was the worst Chocolate Cake they'd ever eaten.  Those who knew it was Gingerbread said different, but the damage was done.  

Here are some of my favourite things, or as Jo Brand would say "Show us your bakes!" time . . . 

Today the Icelandic Yuletide Lads begin the journey out of the mountains.  I have written about them several times but here is a quick LINK to an online article if you want to refresh yourself on the folklore of an Icelandic Christmas.

All Icelandic children will be waking up this morning to find if today's lad has left a treat or a moldy potato in their shoe left on the windowsill.  

Until tomorrow . . .

Advent Day Eleven

Hello Friends!

I shall give you a break from all the food!  I think by now you can see why I called it the two day seige! Leftovers kept us going into New Year, and beyond in the case of slow perishable items such as chocolates and nuts.  Surprisingly, although refrigeration was a thing of the future, nothing went off like it does today and no one got an upset tummy other than by self-imposed overindulgence!  Our pantry was built by my father, north facing and partly underground with thick, insulating walls and a tiny window for ventilation, it worked brilliantly!  I can see it in my mind's eye to this day.

It is pitch dark outside again.  My tummy says it's breakfast time, my body says don't move.  The clock ticking noisily says time to get up.  My body says don't you dare move, stay put under the quilts.  My hands, chilled from typing my blog since five a.m. are telling me to put them back under the covers or go get a mug of hot coffee to hold.  The laptop provides some warmth that permeates through the layers under which I am snuggled.  I am the Princess and the Pea in reverse!

I feel for those still without power in this wintry chill, and am grateful for small mercies though I am shivering with cold this morning so my fingers drag across the keyboard and hit the wrong keys.  I am frustrated at this so instead of what I had planned, here are a few photos of bits and bobs of Christmases past.

Until tomorrow . . . 

Advent Day Ten

Hello Friends!

You cannot make it up.  We are nowhere near having recovered from Storm Darragh than we now find ourselves last evening under a stay indoors advisory {not that anyone would want to be out in this unless they had no choice} with doors and windows shut tight because the local Dowrog Common on the outskirts is ablaze and the Fire Brigade are in attendance.  It has been brought under control, but honestly, you couldn't make it up.

Yesterday, a fellow blogger did a lovely post on pop up Christmas shops.  It triggered a memory shared to me by my mother, and pop up shops might not be the twenty first century phenomenon we think they are!  I'm going to take you back several decades now to before I was born.

There is an old building in the High Street currently called The Really Wild Emporium in its current incarnation, but previously it has been many things including a pasta cafe and a grocery shop.  Let's go back to the time it was called City Bakery, owned by the Nash family.  It was, as the name suggests, a bakery, Mr Nash was a master baker of some considerable skill.  It was also a general grocery shop, and in the 1940's my mother was a shop girl at City Bakery.  She left school in 1942 at age fourteen as you could do then, and she secured employment from Mr Nash.
{if you opt to follow the above link, go to their FB or Insta page to see photos of the frontage which is really quite lovely}

My mother often told me of Christmas at City Bakery.  Not so much about the actual shop, which was Mr Nash's domain, but the upstairs hallway and front room that overlooked the High Street.  That was the domain of Mrs Nash and it was transformed before Christmas into what we would today call a pop-up shop.  

Now, you must remember that this was in the days that predate the highly commercialised state of Christmas that prevails today when Christmas can begin appearing in the shops in September or earlier.  This was 1940's Britain.  It was partly during World War II and after when rationing prevailed.  Yet at the end of November the transformation happened when the hallway was decked out for Christmas and which led you along to the sitting room above the shop which Mrs Nash transformed into a Winter Wonderland of Christmas gifts and fripperies within the confines that rationing allowed.  

There were dolls, teddies, wooden train sets and books, colouring books, crayons and paint, French knitting sets, embroidery sets, boxed handkerchiefs and oh! so much more to delight the children. As rationing lifted, tins of biscuits, sweets and chocolates, Turkish Delight and other goodies made their appearance.  Shoppers were invited and enticed to step upstairs to the Christmas Emporium and pick whatever treats they could afford and their heart's desire.  It was a magic wonderland of joy and excitement for children and adults alike.  Orders were placed and deposits taken, and the long wait until Christmas Day began!  It was a very different way of doing business back then.  

A few of you have said you are amazed at my recall, well it's the way it is, I have always had an eye for detail and I guess it's showing up here. I do enjoy story telling and by regularly visiting certain memories it is a way of keeping them alive, not allowing them to fade into obscurity.   I do know I often speak of things, long forgotten, and the listeners will say, "Goodness, yes, why we'd forgotten all about that!" Then I take them along the trip down Memory Lane.

Until tomorrow . . .