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 . . . 

Advent Day Nine

Hello Friends!

Thank you for your comments on yesterday's Storm Darragh update. South and West Wales seem to have borne the brunt of it, but I got lucky and came through relatively unscathed.  I must now make sure I put together an updated emergency kit of supplies for it is bound to happen again!  Hopefully not as bad, and hopefully not for a long time but I must be prepared for things have changed since the last time I needed emergency supplies, and not only my health issues.  For example, these days with so many things running on rechargeable batteries it is advisable to keep a fully charged recharging power pack.  It is also important now that BT's new and "improved" Digital Voice which does not allow one to make phone calls if there is a power cut, to have a fully charged mobile phone on hand. My DAB Radio runs off mains and battery, however when on battery power it only last about an hour so it might be a good idea to get a solar and wind up powered radio.  Just in cases.  Trouble is, the weather is more and more unpredictable these days.  Oh, and an updated spare few days of medication in case of emergency evacuation.  The emergency phone list needs updating too!  So much to think about.

I have had it up to here on social media with all the people in my area who bleat on about checking in on your older, more vulnerable, or disabled neighbours but did one of them pick up the phone to check in on me?  No, they did not.  Let's get back to the Blogmass, shall we?

Boxing Day was an altogether different day from Christmas Day.  Unless it fell on a Sunday {when it was moved to Monday in lieu} and there was church, we all had a glorious lie in, the adults not getting up until well after eight o'clock and I was left in my cosy, warm bed until nine!  

It was a day of complete relaxation, a very different day to Christmas Day with all the preparations and cooking followed by clearing away the dishes with all the fraught tension of getting everything ready together and on time.

Daddy would often go for a long walk with the dogs after breakfast.  He was a quick walker and in about an hour he could cover six or more miles.  Although he enjoyed Christmas Day at home, he was a very active, outdoor man and to be cooped up indoors two days in a row was his worst nightmare.  When I was old enough and my short, little legs could keep up I would often go with him.  Of course, I'd end up being carried.  After traipsing the byways around the village, we would come home, huffing and puffing our way up the hill ready for a mug of fresh, steaming hot coffee and yet more mince pies.  When I was old enough, I would join Daddy in sipping a small glass of DeKuyper Cherry or Apricot Brandy {I favoured Cherry, and still do, it is the Christmas drink for me}  We'd pick at a chocolate or two, maybe a handful of nuts and a satsuma while waiting for lunch.

A short while later, lunch was ready, and despite our mid morning snack fest, so were we!  Our traditional Boxing Day lunch was a simple meal of cold cuts of meat and leftover turkey served with reheated leftover vegetables in the form of Bubble and Squeak, and my very favourite fried patties of mashed potato and swede cooked until the outside was slightly caramelised. Sometimes, we'd have a fresh laid fried egg, unctuous and oozing, for the hens kept on laying despite the overflowing pantry of food.  There were dishes of stuffing, pickled onions, Branston Pickle, and quartered tomatoes for those who wanted to help themselves.  Don't judge me, I loved Boxing Day lunch more than I enjoyed Christmas Day Dinner.  There's something about leftovers that is just so good.

Pudding was left over Christmas Pudding with a boat of fresh Brandy Sauce.  We pulled the leftover Christmas crackers too.

Clearing up was much quicker, and it was not long after lunch before the four of us were out of the door and off for a leisurely Boxing Day stroll, for my mother and grandmother would never keep up the pace at which Daddy and I walked in the morning.  We'd bump into neighbours and fellow villagers, everyone out with the same purpose, to try and walk off some of the excesses of the last two days.  Pleasantries and compliments of the season were exchanged, and a couple of chilly hours later we'd return home, the fire would be stoked and roaring it would warm the room for the evening, the kettle was on, tea was brewing within ten minutes and in no time at all we were munching on more mince pies that had been warmed in the oven while the tea was being made, and a dollop of Brandy Butter was added under the crispy lid.  This time, the pies had to be eaten with a spoon as the butter slowly melted into a pale golden pool of liquor soaking into the pastry.  

My father and grandmother both dozed off, my mother would read and I would begin the task of writing out by hand the dozen or so thank you notes to relatives for the lovely and thoughtful gifts I had received.

By this time, I think there were no more than half a dozen mince pies left in the pantry.  I nibbled on one while writing my letters.

In the blink of an eye, it was tea time!  Leftovers again!  Hurrah!  This time, my most favourite of all the Christmas meals, the Boxing Day Sandwich!  Two slices of bread, not to thick, and buttered of course, and filled with sliced, cold leftover turkey and a thin slice of stuffing, topped with Branston Pickle, serve with some lightly salted plain crisps and pickled onions.  My idea of heaven on a plate.  Of course I haven't eaten one in years as a vegetarian, but oh! the memories!

Where my mother had found the time on Christmas Day I will never know, but somehow she managed to squeeze into the busy day the time to make a big bowl of Sherry Trifle ready for the following day, for no Boxing Day tea was complete without a dish of Sherry Trifle.  Ours was the whole nine yards, prepared in a crystal bowl that was my great grandmothers.  It was layered thus:  trifle sponges that were split open and spread with strawberry jam, doused generously with sherry, then the layer of fruit {either mandarins, peaches or fruit cocktail}.  Next came a layer of glistening red jelly carefully poured so as not to disturb the previous layers.  Once set, this was topped with thick, golden yellow custard, and finally a generous layer of whipped cream garnished with either flaked almonds, maraschino cherries or hundreds and thousands.  

Nothing can beat the sound of that first big spoonful of trifle as it makes that slurpy schlooop noise as it is separated from the bowl!  A jug of pouring cream sat alongside for anyone who needed more.  This seasonal treat was then followed by even more deliciousness in the form of a slice of Christmas cake for anyone greedy enough or who had room left!

Sated to bursting point, we'd settle in for the evening, the big light turned off, sitting in the glow of the fire and the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree in the window while we watched one of the big films that became a feature of Christmas Day and Boxing Day television viewing.  At intervals through the evening, my mother passed around one of the many boxes of chocolates for us to pick a favourite treat.  To this day, my favourites have always come from the Cadbury's Milk Tray box.  

How we ate all that food goes beyond me, but eat it we did and it was a thing you would find repeated in most houses across the land.

Until next time  . . .

Post Storm Catch up

Hello Friends!

Thank you all for your concern.  I hope you've all survived Darragh.  It was a doozie and we took a pasting.  Lots of damage around the village with trees down, roads blocked, the roof flew off the local petrol station, fascia boards and signage down in the road all over the place, flying slates, fencing panels and more.  Most people heeded the Government advice and stayed indoors, but there's always someone who doesn't.  Flood alerts were in place, and all ferry services cancelled while bus services were suspended and trains not running at all.  The power is out in pockets across the peninsula, thankfully at the moment I'm okay but where power is concerned it can just go out.  It also affects the water pumps, so I might have power but if it's off at the water station then we'll be without water.

It is still very blustery here with winds still around 50 mph but easing by the hour now.

I'm just going to share the missed Advent Calendar pictures today then pick back up tomorrow.

Until tomorrow . . . 

Day Seven

Day Eight

Storm Darragh

Hello Friends!

Due to the current situation with Storm Darragh, I will not be blogging until Monday when I will do a catch up on the Advent Calendar.

Winds currently 70 mph and increasing.

In the meantime, to all those of us in the UK, stay safe!

See you on the other side! 

Advent Day Six

Hello Friends!

My contribution to Blogmas is taking a very different turn to the one I'd planned, and that is fine.  Let's just go with the flow. This is how I remember Christmas morning.

We all know the tradition of a Christmas Stocking.  Mine was not a fancy embroidered or handmade heirloom kind, but one of a pair of socks belonging to my Daddy.  I was allowed one of his, a big woolly fisherman's sock, because mine were just too small!  I would place it with great care at the foot of my bed and lie awake for what seemed like hours hoping to catch even the most fleeting of glimpses of red, or hear the music of sleighbells as reindeer alighted on our roof.  It was not to be.  Father Christmas knew the moment I'd nodded off and in he swooped and off he flew in less than the time it takes for a snowflake to melt in summer.

Credit: Mary Engelbreit

When morning came, I often awoke to see a windowpane where Jack Frost had danced, and my breath puffed in clouds, yet it never seemed cold, not like it does today.  My room was directly above the kitchen, and the fragrant smells of a turkey slowly roasting overnight wafted upwards, and I could hear my mother and grandmother already up and going about the business of preparing for the Christmas feast, but nothing could steal my excitement as I discovered a stocking full of goodies at the foot of my cosy bed! There was always a colouring book and crayons, some sweets, an apple and a satsuma or clementine, some money, a bag of chocolate coins, and a handful of nuts that later in the morning my Daddy would shell for me to eat.

I would dash downstairs, tumbling head first into the kitchen to see if Father Christmas had eaten his mince pies, drank his sherry and taken the carrots for the reindeer.  There was always a lovely note to say Thank You for thinking of him!  Oh! Great Joy! Proof positive!

Credit: Mary Engelbreit

I barrelled out of the kitchen where my mother and grandmother were cooing over the turkey and now beginning on preparing the vegetables.  I am sure the Brussels Sprouts were already on boiling!  Down the hall I hurtled and into the front room where my eyes beheld the view all children hoped to find . . . the tree surrounded with parcels.  The excitement was now unbearable! 

The next two hours would be agony, pure unadulterated agony.  I was hauled off into the bathroom, washed and dressed in my new Christmas outfit.  We never ate breakfast before going to church, so off we went to the early 8:00 a.m. service which in the eyes of a child on Christmas morning seemed to drag on into the next century.  Eventually, after much being patted on the head and repeatedly asked the endless question every adult asks on Christmas morning, "Did Father Christmas visit you last night?" wishing adults were not so curious a breed, we were home and tucking in to a light breakfast. 

Credit Mary Engelbreit

Finally, the opening of presents commenced.  At some point, my mother, who needed to be back in the kitchen, decided we'd come back to the rest after lunch.  My agony was to be prolonged!  Tears followed but were quickly eased with the offering of a piece of chocolate from one of the dishes on the sideboard.  Bribery worked!  The adults went about their day and I settled down to play with new toys and read books.

After a mid morning top up of coffee and mince pies, my father and I snacked on dried fruit and nuts so how we found room for Christmas Dinner I will never know, but soon we were sitting at the dining table which was threatening to give way as it groaned under the weight of all the food.  There was turkey, sausage meat stuffing, chipolatas, bacon rolls, roast potatoes, creamed potatoes with swede, boiled carrots, honeyed parsnips, mushy peas, bread sauce, gravy, and of course, Brussels Sprouts which by now were overcooked beyond the pale.  No one would dare eat more than a few spoons full of everything as room must be left for the Christmas Pudding that followed.

The pudding arrived at the table.  We pulled our crackers, read the awful jokes and donned our paper hats.  Then in time honoured tradition the great round pudding was set on fire!  We watched in awe as the blue flames flickered, then the pudding was served with lashings of brandy sauce.  

If anyone had an empty corner to fill and come back for second helpings, this was the moment, but no one ever did, we were stuffed!  The table was cleared and the long job of washing dishes commenced.  My poor mother and grandmother.  Christmas day for them was one long slog. I did not come to appreciate this fact for some years.  

We settled around in the living room and finished opening the presents that had been kept back.  The number of presents was the drawback of a large family who exchanged with everyone until some years later the matriarchs agreed to stop.

Shortly after The Queen's Speach, there would be a knock on the door.  It was answered, and in stepped Mr Dewi Jones from the Beehive where my mother worked in the shop.  Beaming, he handed me a parcel saying that Father Christmas had left this in the shop by mistake so he'd brought it down for me. Sure enough, the label had my name and with love from Father Christmas.  It was always a book, to my delight!

Credit: Mary Engelbreit

At some point in the afternoon, the dishes were finally done and we all sat around the fire in the cosy front room watching whatever special film was on television, most of us probably drifting off to a long winter's nap after eating too much . . . ready for Round Two . . . 

Until tomorrow . . . 

Advent Day Five

Hello Friends!

When I was a child, the only thing that I knew about Christmas was that we celebrated the birth of someone called Baby Jesus, something that was enacted out at our school Nativity and in church at Sunday School, that I got lots of presents, we ate lots of treats, and that along with all my friends we would become sick with excitement in anticipation waiting for a jolly old man dressed in a red suit to come down our chimney after travelling across the sky in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer to leave presents under a decorated tree in the front room.  That probably sums up the opinion of most children in western civilization where Christmas is celebrated.

However, since I began to write the Blogmass five days ago, I've already discovered that I remember more than I realise.  This was not what I had planned to do with this Blogmas, but those child's eyes of mine must have been drinking in the images going before them and lodging them somewhere deep inside me., so I am running with it.  I am remembering far more detail than I am recording here and perhaps I'll skirt around the time pine needles from our Christmas tree ended up in the rice pudding.  That was the last year we had a real tree!

Today I'm going to reminisce about Christmas cards, which we all know what they are.  I'm going to talk about them in a personal context not historical, but in case anyone is interested, the first recorded evidence of a Christmas card is from the 1600's sent by a German physicist Michael Maier to King James I of England.  The first commercial ones became available some two hundred years later, and the rest is history, although it must be asked, will the current increases in postage rates see the demise of the Christmas card?

There was so much love, and yes there was much excess  too with all the eating and indulging, but historically there has always been excess at Christmas.  I remember Christmas cards in particular flooding into the house day after day.  Everyone sent and received more than I now care to imagine.  My mother spent many nights in early December writing out and addressing the two hundred or more cards she would send.  The Post Office {we had our own wee sorting office at the back of the Beehive Grocery Shop} took on extra delivery personnel.  I recall my friend's mother was one of them, and she had to walk around the village pushing a large, weatherproof, supermarket style trolley that was compartmentalised by street to push handfuls of cards through hungry letterboxes.  When full, it must have weighed a ton!   Often she was wet and cold by the time she reached our house and was more than happy to be invited in for a cup of tea and a mince pie sitting by the fire in the kitchen for a warm before setting out again.  

I do wish we'd been the sort of family who took pictures, but we weren't, so you will have to put up with me painting the pictures with words instead.

Bundles of cards arrived each day.  We probably received two hundred or more between family, friends, tradespeople, and school.  The long mantel in the front room was filled from end to end, while the bookshelves on each end had cards popped in between the covers of books so that the pictures showed to the front.  Cards were placed on the sideboard, only to need rearranging ever time the door to the room was opened and they blew over in the draft!  There was a big, deep windowsill, big enough to take our Christmas tree, and the space all around that was filled with cards.  They overflowed, and many were stuck to the back of the door!  I remember one year my mother bought these little sets of Baker's Twine and tiny gypsy style pegs.  The twine was draped across the walls and the cards were pegged to the twine., like garlands around the room.  A few years ago, I found the remains of twine and pegs in the attic.  

On January 6th, on Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, everything Christmas, including the cards, was taken down.  Ornaments were dusted and cleaned, then carefully wrapped up in tissue paper and put back in their box before being taken back up into the attic.  The Christmas cards were all put in a box, and we decamped from our sojourn the front room, where we had spent the last two or three weeks, back into the living room, television on it's trolley and all!

Over the coming evenings, my poor mother spent hours going through the box of spent Christmas cards, carefully recording who had sent them and making her list of names and addresses as an aide memoir from which the Christmas card list for the following year would be prepared.  The cards, now discarded, were cut up and any large, unprinted section of white card was put in the "messy drawer" to be used over the coming months for notes written to the milkman, shopping lists, and other such tasks where a small piece of paper was needed.  I was given the fronts off the cards with all the pretty pictures.  Using a child's safety scissors, I cut them up and played with them.  I stuck some in my scrap book, used some to make collaged pictures, and I cut shapes out that were then punched with a hole and had string added to make gift tags for the following Christmas.  The unusable pieces that had printing or writing on them were burned in the kitchen fire.  This was how we recycled in the 1960's!  

In later years, we passed our cards on to Care in the Community where they were used in the weekly craft sessions of the residents bringing them joy as they created new things from them.

Here are some photos of Christmas in Iceland where they make tree ornaments and baskets from the used Christmas cards.  Shapes are cut which are then stitched together using brightly coloured yarn.

The basket at the front of the table in the third picture is made from recycled Christmas cards sewn together patchwork style.  Nothing wasted!  Making new things from old is not only good for the environment, but also a lot of fun too!

Until tomorrow . . .