Mon 30th Dec - Update on a Good Day

Today is ending well. I have got some work done in preparation for the new term which is approaching at a deceptive speed. I have quilted two more squares of the current quilt, and added some more inches to the current Tunisian crochet strip without having to then rip it back again.

The trebuchet and the catapult are complete and fully operational. Hey! Look! I've managed to upload a videoclip!

That one only just missed the cat who was asleep at the other end of the room.

We have supped on slow roast lamb. A sort of Jamie Oliver recipe as follows (posted here for daughter, who partook of the repast, and son/father who might like to have a go at this sometime);
Preheat oven to 200C
In the bottom of a roasting tray, put a bay leaf or two, some sprigs of rosemary and a handful of parsley, if you have them. On top, lay a shoulder (or a half shoulder for just 2 or 3 of you) of lamb. Surround the lamb with chunks of leek (1), quartered onion (2), chunks of carrot (3), and celery (2 sticks). The numbers in brackets are how many I used this time, along with a whole shoulder. Add all the cloves from a head of garlic - I peel them which isn't too tricky if you ever-so-slightly crush them, enough to loosen the papery skin. Add liquid - in this case a whole bottle of mediumly decent red wine. You could use tinned tomatoes - I would have done if we'd had any - as part of the liquid, or dry cider, or decent stock. If you have a half leg in a smaller baking dish, then use less liquid.
Cover with a double layer of foil and put  the oven, turning it down to 170C. Leave it alone for three and a half or four hours. The veg will be soft, the garlic delicious and mild, and the meat falling off the bone.

He would have followed this with Christmas Pudding (that's why I timed the meal for an early supper) but ate too much lamb and so has no room.

Maybe we'll polish off a mince pie a bit later on.

Monday 30th December 2013 - Penultimate Day of 2013

I feel as though I have been hibernating since Christmas. I have left the house three times;

on Saturday to go foraging for more food (not rummaging along the hedgerows behind our house, but at Waitrose),

on Sunday to go to church (and it was perishing cold, -3C, and that's when we discovered that my car battery had died, and luckily he'd tried and failed to start my car before beginning to scrape the ice for me, because it took 15 mins to scrape the ice off his car, and I had, for once, left plenty of time, because it would have been awkward if I had been late as I was the organist!)

today, for a routine blood test this morning (and foul weather it is today - it may be a "warm" 10C but I did not appreciate getting a large cold dollop of rain in my ear between leaving the house and scrambling into the car).

I don't "do" cold; if I get "chilled to the marrow", like yesterday in church, it makes me feel seedy and grumpy and unhappy. They only way for me to get properly warm again is to have a hot bath or go to bed. So yesterday I had a "duvet half-day" and felt much better.

Part of me feels as though I am wasting the holiday period; that I should be out visiting my parents and catching up with friends and going for brisk and bracing walks through the beautiful countryside. (It did LOOK lovely yesterday, but it was PERISHINGLY BITTER once you got outside.) The rest of me feels as though I am slowly surfacing from a pit of tiredness that I slipped into so gradually, so imperceptibly, over the last six months, that I was well down before I even realised it was happening.

Hibernating, I have come to the conclusion, is the right thing to be doing. A bit of reading, a bit of sewing, a bit of television, some radio...

BBeloved is doing the same kind of thing, in his own way. He is catching up on all the kits he has been given this Christmas and previous Christmases, which have stayed in their boxes, teasing and tantalising because he has had neither time nor energy to make them up.

He now has a Twin-Lens Reflex camera again, made up from a kit he was given this year, (he sold his last one to buy me my engagement ring).

 and a trebuchet is taking shape, rather ominously, at the other end of the dining room table as I type. The instructions and bits-and-pieces for a Stirling Engine are close to hand, as is a small model plane.

Time for me to move, as the trebuchet has been armed with a small paper ball. Oho - luckily for me, the first firing only went a yard; the contraption needs to be loaded up serious weights - rocks and gravel - rather than just all the loose change we can find in the house.. That will have to wait - we are NOT going to look for rocks in this weather. He's now starting on the catapult.

Boxing Day 2013 - Pie with Suet Crust Pastry

I promised you this recipe, and today seems a good time to post it.

It's the pie we had a couple of days ago, using leftover roast chicken. So of course you can use it with left over cooked turkey as well.

you need
for the filling
onion or leek,
any combination of cooked chicken or turkey, ham, bacon,
other veg, for example carrots, or peas or sweet corn or whatever,
butter or oil
plain flour
stock or milk

for the pastry
grated suet
self-raising flour
salt, pepper, mixed herbs

I used one small leek, a couple of carrots, and a suitable shake of frozen peas, as well as a cereal bowl full of cooked chicken, and then 3 ounces suet and 6 ounces of flour to make these three individual pies:

here goes;

preheat oven to 200C

for the filling; parboil raw carrots if using, and any other "hard" raw vegetables, for about 7-10 mins. Otherwise they will might be be crunchy.
fry the leeks/onion in the butter/oil until transparent and soft. Stir in a good tablespoon of plain flour to absorb all the fat and juice, and then slowly add sufficient milk/stock (and a slosh of white wine or dry sherry doesn't go amiss here) to make a generous quantity of a thinnish kind of gravy, the consistency of single cream. You want to have a decent amount of liquid, as the pastry will tend to soak it up. Add vegetables at this stage. You can add the meat now too, if you are going to cook it straightaway, otherwise let it all get cool first before adding the meat.

make the pastry; combine self-raising flour, suet, a good pinch of salt, some grinds of pepper and a generous pinch of dried herbs in a bowl. Slowly add water, mixing well with a fork or your fingers, until it all combines into a dough. Roll out as you need it for your pie.

Put the filling into the pie dish, top with the pastry (I just squidged the dough out to shape between my fingers as I was too lazy to dig out the rolling pin). Make a hole in the top of the pastry and if you are feeling posh, glaze with milk.

Bake for about 30 mins at 200C or until it looks done. If you have allowed enough liquid in the filling, the underside of the pastry will be the consistency of dumpling, and there will still be some gravy left with the meat.

You can serve potatoes as well, but I find that the suet pastry is substantial enough on its own.

Boxing Day 2013 - Please Yourself Day

My mother started this tradition, when I was a teenager.

She announced that on Boxing Day everyone could do whatever they liked, and she, for one, was going to do the same.

We were all old enough to fend for ourselves, there was plenty of food in the fridge and we were old enough to manage!

On that occasion my grandmother was staying with us. She elected to stay in bed, and people brought her sandwiches, and soup on a tray, and gin-and-peppermint-cordial, and coffee at regular intervals. I suspect my brother and I stayed in our pyjamas most of the day, watching TV, snacking on crisps and chocolate.

I think we all regrouped and put some kind of evening meal together; baked potatoes, left-overs, celery and carrots sticks, that kind of thing.

It turned out that we were none of us so selfish, or self-absorbed, that we couldn't, or wouldn't, offer food, or drink to each other at random moments through the day. If someone wanted to go for a walk, they went out by themselves if they wanted to, or maybe gathered a party of like-minded people if they wanted company, but no-one felt that they HAD to join in with anything.

The tradition has continued. Obviously, while the children were very young we couldn't go for it in a  big way, but as they got older, they, too, learnt to fend for themselves, with a little help from us parents.

We were out earlier, doing this and that. Our reward was to be part of the beautiful morning; while BestB was scraping the ice off the car, I took this picture. Every berry had its own jewel-drop of water.

Christmas Day 2013 - All things considered

All things considered, I think it went well.

I guess it started with Midnight Communion, timed to perfection to reach the sharing of bread and wine at midnight.

So far (and it is now nearly 8pm) we have been to the morning service at church, shared in the cooking, serving and eating of The Meal with my parents, phoned family, opened presents (thank you everyone!) and watched the gothic ballet interpretation of The Sleeping Beauty and had smoked salmon sandwiches for a light supper.

We forgot the red cabbage at lunchtime. But, with sprouts, carrots, parsnips and potatoes to accompany the turkey and ham and chipolata sausages I don't think we missed it too badly.

They are about to watch Dr Who, and although I will be in the same room, on the sofa, I will be protecting myself from the scary bits by reading a Christmas book.

Happy Christmas everyone. It's been peaceful here. Hope it was for you, too.

Christmas Eve 2013 - Last few hours before Christmas Day

I can't believe we've made it. Neither can the Downstairs Cat, from the look of her.

In an hour's time I will set off through the rain to the Midnight Communion Service, and Christmas will begin.

Everything that needed to be done has been done. Those things left undone can wait until later.

It's now a good time to enjoy some peace and quiet, watch the Advent candle burn, eat the last Advent chocolate (although His calendar, unlike mine, goes up to the 25th).

Now that I have a detailed plan of campaign in place for the Great Cooking of the Christmas Meal, and copies have been distributed on a need-to-know basis, I feel more relaxed. Provided the cooker doesn't implode, or explode, with or without bang, we should be sitting down to eat at 1pm.




Every year, something strange seems to happen to the way that time flows; suddenly, in the last few days before Christmas, time speeds up, and the hours are filled with a relentless rush to buy and make and store and search and tidy and clear and clean until there is no joy left, just hurry, hurry, hurry.

And then, every year, there comes a moment when it is ok. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. Again. Once more. We will reach the journey's end, there will be somewhere to stay, and everything will be just fine.

So, Happy Christmas, everybody.

Monday 23rd December - Tuesday 24th December - What a night!

Last night the Upstairs Cat spent the whole evening peering out through the cat flap in the kitchen. There was nothing to see, just an impenetrable blackness and the sound of rain thundering against the door. I opened the door a crack for her to have a proper look-see, (she likes to check things out before venturing into the jungle). She rushed round, and halted in shock. There was a terrible deep roaring coming from the wind through the large oaks at the bottom of the garden, as though the black jungle was full of hungry wild beasts.

"Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak

Upstairs Cat hunkered down and slunk away into her bed.

During the night we were kept awake by the howling wind and thrashing rain. We'd just gone back to sleep when there was a power cut, causing my oxygen machine to make frantic beeping alarms. The power came back after a couple of minutes, and this time we managed to sleep for at least another hour. Bleah.

This morning, we woke to a wet world. The little trickling brook that slowly oozes along a deep gully beyond the bottom of the garden is now a couple of hundred yards across, hurtling towards the River Arun at the rate of 6 miles per hour. I took some pictures from the upstairs window - it is not called the "Red River" for nothing.

 

Don't panic - it has to flood considerably more before we are in any danger; the level of the water is about 4 feet below the level of our "lawn". As I was taking photographs, there was this distant, desperate mewling. For a few moments I thought that maybe there was a cat stranded in one of the trees, surrounded by water, and was beginning to formulate rescue plans. I opened the window, and could see the Downstairs Cat wandering around by the back door, announcing to the world the terrible, terrible, End-of-days apocalypse that has come to pass.

It has started to rain again.

Monday 23rd December - More preparations... and meatballs

What happened to the cream that I thought I bought? Maybe I only thought I'd bought it. There's always tomorrow.

Meanwhile:

The mantelpiece - involved dusting and polishing with some lurverly beeswax cream furniture polish - mmm - smells like a National Trust House in here. The delicate golden ornaments came from Copenhagen years ago.

We've tinselled the dining room - not as much as usual - but we seem to have lights and lights and more Christmas and still another box of lights left over, in spite of reluctantly abandoning the 25 year-old ones and the ten-year-old ones. Spare bulbs no longer available.

The menfolk watering the Christmas Tree. One person lies flat on the floor, pouring the water into the stand (or possibly onto the mat - hard to tell) while the other ferries jugs of water to and fro.

There was a HUGE amount of clearing-the-decks to be done, but somehow, while I was making cheat's meatballs (preheat oven to around 170C. Combine a packet of lean minced beef, say 400g or 500g, and a packet of posh sausagemeat or skinned sausages, probably weighing about 450g until thoroughly mixed. Line a couple of roasting tins with baking parchment. Roll into little meatballs the size of walnuts, and arrange in rows in the roasting tins. I made 40 this time. Bake for around 30mins. Cool, and freeze, loosely packed, so you can retrieve as many as you like when you like. Serve with bought sauce or home-made sauce or curry sauce or gravy) where was I, oh yes, the menfolk lugged ALL the Christmas decoration boxes back into the loft. Three cheers!

The weather is VILE. Wet and windy. We were out delivering a few last-minute presents and getting earfuls of dollops of very wet rain every time we (or rather, he) got out of the car.

We are having chicken and vegetable pie with herby suet-crust pastry for supper. Recipe for that will follow soon. Aha! the buzzer. That means it will be ready in about in 10 minutes.

Sunday 22nd December - Christmas Preparations continue

The tree is up, as you will know by now.

I also made brandy butter and rum butter yesterday.

Brandy Butter

Cream equal weights of softened unsalted butter and caster sugar. My mother taught me to keep the caster sugar in a jar with vanilla pods, long before anyone had heard of vanilla sugar. It is perfect for baking and for strawberries (oh, do you remember strawberries and cream and hot sun and thin cotton summer clothes and going barefoot, a few months ago?). For us, I used three ounces each of butter and sugar - that would be around 75 g I suspect. Once the butter and sugar are combined, beat in brandy. I probably used three tablespoons, hard to tell as I just use the cap from the bottle. It is as much brandy as the mixture will hold; some tends to leak out a bit. I also grated in some lemon zest - about a quarter of a lemon.

Rum Butter

As for brandy butter, but use soft brown sugar and rum (obviously!) and some grated orange zest.

They will keep for a while in the fridge.

We always have these, and cream, with mince pies and with Christmas Pudding. In the unlikely event you have any left over after Christmas, use them as part of the ingredients for the farmhouse fruit cake which you will find here
http://www.recipesfromacornishkitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/farmhouse-cake-this-is-my-favourite.html
or make buns (Victoria sponge recipe). Weight up the left overs, and assume half the weight is butter and half is sugar, and add and subtract and adjust your recipe accordingly. Now you know why you had to do sums at school.
 
Next to be done are the dining room and the fireplace.

Neither will happen today, as first we will have Sunday lunch and then I will be playing for a carol service over in Hampshire (their organist is on holiday on the other side of the world!) and before anything else can be done we have to deal with this:

I had a bit of work to do before I could practise the carols for this evening as the overspill from the dining room table was spectacular, even for us, but I just moved the mess to somewhere else. For now.

I think we'll be eating our roast Sunday Lunch on our laps. As usual.

Saturday 21st December 2013 - The Ceremony of The Tree

We got the tree done!

Every year, I wonder if it won't be just fine as it is.

Then I give in and put the lights on - and yes, that was worth doing. But it looks so pretty, need I add any more?

 Tinsel next. "It has to lie along the branches as though it was snow" can you hear my mother's voice? No? Well I can, so there is no other way to put the tinsel on.

Baubles. Red and Silver, and, daringly, pale gold ones. Four of the baubles are from Woolworths, still intact since our first Christmas Tree in 1977. They are a bit faded and tarnished, but go up every year.

 You might think that the tree was finished now, but no. Between 3 and 6 strands of lametta have to be hung over every single little branch and twig.

You might have noticed how the day was advancing; it took the whole day, off and on, to decorate the tree, with intervals for visiting parents, having lunch, wrapping a few presents that someone was going to come and collect, pause for a tea-break...

And in just over two week's time, we will be reversing the process and bracing up for next year. Christmas seems to go on for ever and ever, through December, and then, suddenly, The Day arrives, and Christmas is here, but for such a short time.

The little crochet Nativity figures I bought from Traidcraft a couple of years ago have been on the bookshelf for several weeks.

 Now they are almost hidden by the tree; you might just be able to make them out now you know where to look, precariously balanced just in front of the "Oxford Companion to Music". A reminder to me; although as I am playing the organ at a Carol Service tomorrow evening, and for the Midnight Communion on Christmas Eve, and on Sunday 29th December, the Christmas story won't be far from my thoughts.

Friday 20th December - Christmas approaching at speed of light

We are NOT READY for Christmas! Please slow down!

We bought the tree last Sunday, and managed to get it, sopping, dripping wet, into the house on Wednesday- a surprise clear morning because the dentist cancelled our appointments.

It dried out pretty quickly and looks magnificent.

 

 

Notice anything missing? Lights, perhaps? We've got the lights, and extension cables all to hand.

 

We didn't get them, or the tinsel, or the baubles, or the lametta, or the star, onto the tree, because we set off at first light this morning to buy the Christmas Dinner:

 

 

and by the time we got home, we were DONE. I went to bed for an afternoon nap to recover!

 

We've had our supper, and it is time to light the Advent Candle, which has got a bit behind. And investigate how many windows are waiting to be opened in the chocolate calendar. Mine goes back to the 12th, but he's been catching up and has reached the 18th.

 

and then make a cup of tea for me, and maybe pour a whisky for him, and think about The Real Meaning of Christmas for a little while. What a Good Idea. 

Sunday 8th December - Christmas... at home...?

We have friends staying at the moment, and we got to talking about "what are you doing for Christmas?" This proved to be a Large Topic...

Here's how I remember Christmas when I was a child - me and my brother and my parents, and the six cousins, and the four uncles and aunts, and another two or three other adults (maybe my mother's sister,  perhaps my godmother, maybe an au pair, maybe a visitor) and my grandmother, all crammed into a house for what seemed to be a week, but was probably only two or three days.

Back then we all (that is us, and the two sets of aunts-and-uncles) all lived in large houses which could accommodate everyone, on the floor, in bedrooms, in attics, wherever. For us children, it was GRAND. There was feasting and sugared almonds and peanuts and fizzy drinks and presents and non-stop fun and games. It was much later on that I began to realise that for the hosting aunts it was HARD WORK. In retrospect, it seems like a kind of re-creation of a Dickensian Country House Christmas, in miniature, and without the snow.

Here's how Best B remembers Christmas - just the four of them, and whichever granny was living with them at the time, out in the country. NO-ONE travelled at Christmas - travelling was just too expensive and difficult for most people. It was a Family Occasion, when the four or five of them sat round the open fire, shared the special meal, opened the presents. On Boxing Day they would always go to the next farm for a Proper Festive Tea with their neighbour and the family. The children could play games together while the adults enjoyed each other's company and watched a little television (BB grew up in a house with no electricity, so TV was a novelty. I said they lived out in the country!)

Once we had children, we started our own traditions. At first, a Christmas Day with just the four of us  seemed strangely quiet (and also peaceful and relaxed, come to think of it!), with the children and cats nesting among the heaps of presents and paper carpeting the floor. Sometimes we went to my parent's house, but for the most part we have followed our new tradition; stockings, church in the morning, home to nibbles, presents, and Christmas Lunch. The rest of the day is always bit of a blur...

At the time it was a new thought for me, that the huge family get-together was not the "normal" and "best" way to spend Christmas. 

Our friends also view Christmas as a special, intimate, family time "We didn't go visiting or have visitors on Christmas Day - that was for the days between Christmas and New Year", and "Christmas is a time for us and the children to spend time together". This from both sides of their family.

It's all a bit of a minefield, this big question of "Where are we having Christmas this year?" or, even, "Where do we have to go for Christmas this year?". There is the possibility of mega tantrums about who spends Christmas where, and how, based on "what we've always done" and "do we have to do this every year?" Especially, dare I add, where new grandchildren are involved?

Well, there are no new grandchildren on my horizon at the moment, so for now, I am watching, and learning, ready for when we might be so lucky. I'm hoping I will be generous enough to say to my son or daughter "do what pleases YOU this Christmas" when, if, the occasion arises.

Friday 6th December - Evergreen evening

This has been a feature of the social whirl at our every year, at the beginning of December, for a good few years now. We get together for an evening of making Christmas wreaths and table decorations, fortified by Chrismassy refreshments (cakes, mince pies, stollen) and background  music.

It was the first time that I had been along. My Fatal Error was to fail to being any greenery or secaters with me (we were supposed to provide our own). Best Beloved proved is undying love by going out into the cold and frosty garden by torchlight and hacking at a couple of the bushes, and then bringing the consequences of his endeavours to the church hall where daughter and I were waiting to begin.

It was a fun evening; and fascinating to see how differently everyone's wreath ended up. Here are a few;

 

All these wreaths except two (the one with a candle, and the one on the left in the middle row) started with identical rings of oasis as the base.

 

They do seem to reflect the personality of the constructor. You've probably already guessed that mine is bottom left, the heap of greenery with a red ribbon threaded through it. When I got it home, I stuck four candles in, and designated it an Advent Wreath as there was no way it would have survived being hung on the front door.

Saturday 7th December - The Really Secret Craft Project...

... is finished, and only just in time before the intended recipients arrived this morning.

I'm a bit pleased with myself, if the truth be told. The last pocket was done on Thursday night.

Saturday 7th December - Realistic Idealism

On many occasions I have really, really wanted to follow my dreams... for example

Ideal; To live in a gorgeous country cottage with roses round the door (this is clearly a Summer time dream... the roses are always bloomin' marvellous).

The cottage would be tastefully decorated in well-chosen colours, with perfect antiques and vintage finds. The uncluttered surfaces would be decorated by - three assorted but toning glass bottles with unusual seed heads casually arranged in and around them - or an array of seashells from that wonderful holiday in Wales - or a selection of quaint little hand-carved boxes - just like in the books.

Reality; You are miles away from shops, buses, schools, petrol stations. In winter you can't get out because the roads are snowy and icy and the gritting lorry never comes. In bad weather you lose your electricity (there is no mains gas). Broadband is woefully slow. The seed heads drop bits everywhere, the sea shells collect dust and the hand carved boxes just look really, really tatty.

However, I have discovered a realist's solution to another idealistic dream...

Ideal; to have chickens at the bottom of the garden, and live in a sort of small suburban small-holding with fresh eggs and a kind of farm type environment.

Reality: getting up early to feed and water and clean out said chickens and animals. Remembering to go out into the cold and feed and water and shut them up every evening. What happens when a fox gets into the run, or the chickens get old or sick, or they makes holes in the fence... and the noise, and the smell, and the inconvenience...

Solution! Continue to buy eggs from the supermarket as before, but invest in these:

We could have sheep, and baa-lambs, and sweet little piggies as well...

And as many donkeys as we wanted, without the fuss of vets bills and farriers and buying hay and collecting the dung up from the field, and having a field in the first place...

We can just go and buy concrete chickens and sheep and cows from the garden centre.

Every few days we could re-arrange them around the old apple tree at the bottom of the garden.

Foxes, and there are rather too many around here, would never be a problem.

I dunno, however. Concrete animals will never be as warm, and cuddly, and responsive as the real thing. No quirky personality, no amusing little ways.





I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere, but tonight I can't be bothered to think it through. I think it boils down to what you get out of something, whatever it is, depends on what you are prepared to invest, time-wise, into it. This is the fatal flaw in ideals about fresh home-grown vegetables, or a beautiful garden all year round, or a clean and shining house. It takes the investment of time - and that's just not going to happen at the moment!  

Wednesday December 4th - Be Upstanding

Called round at the parents this morning. After coffee, my mother had another go in the standing frame.

She is so much stronger; able to pull herself up from sitting in the wheelchair to standing by herself, and looking much more relaxed. Her balance is better, and she is less reliant on the support straps.

After the best part of fifteen minutes standing she was able to lower herself back to sitting by herself as well.

She can now move her left leg and foot.

Being able to walk any distance is off the edge of the horizon, but progressing to being able to stand and take a step or two is not an unrealistic hope for the future.

That's a double negative, I know, but this is not the place or a time for wild optimism. More a place for carefully qualified, and measured, realism. That way I can be continually surprised and full of rejoicing when she exceeds expectations.

It's like learning a new piece - especially for adult pupils. They always disappoint themselves and berate themselves for slow progress, instead of being cheered and encouraged by what they have achieved. When I'm learning a new pieces, I take the view that just managing to play a small phrase correctly is worth celebrating and gloating over, and worth doing over and over again, congratulating myself each time I get it right, rewarding myself with a cup of coffee or even a gold star! It may seem silly and infantile, but remember, "success breed success". Being able to do something that you have been working towards is worth crowing over, and doing over and over again to enjoy that feeling of achievement.

Thursday December 5th - Pale winter morning

8 am

Opened the curtains just now to a pale blue/ dove grey/ rose pink/ golden clear sky, grass, trees, hedges white with frost.

Beautiful. The leaves on the huge oak trees at the bottom of the garden are such an amazing russet colour.

This is the kind of winter weather that I love - well, to be truthful, I love Looking at from the warmth of indoors. Not so keen on being out in it - cold feet, cold nose, cold fingers.

Sunday December 1st 2013 - Happy New Year - again!

I have got three "Happy New Year" days every year;

January 1st - New Year's Resolution Day

Beginning of September - the New School Year

First Sunday in Advent - beginning of the Church Year.

The first two New Year Days involve action - making resolutions, planning lessons, arranging schedules, making lists, blah blah blah.

Advent, however, is a time of finding space for waiting, watching, listening, somewhere in the midst of the manic logistical nightmare that is December.

I have lit the Advent Candle, and plan to do a bit of Real Advent Activity - that is, Doing nothing that is busy, just Being who I am, until today's portion of wax is consumed.

There will be plenty of time later in the day to go back to all those lists and laundry piles and other preparations waiting to be done.

Saturday 30th November - Thank heavens for that

Calendar page for November with a miniature of a nobleman returning from a hunt, from the Golf Book (Book of Hours, Use of Rome), - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/11/a-calendar-page-for-november-2013.html#sthash.SSWQvaxE.dpuf

The LAST DAY of NOVEMBER

so don't expect any more DAILY posts for another year!

It's been a bit of a slog this time round with quite a few fails.

There have been phases in my life when I have kept a written diary - sometimes for as long as a couple of months. In the end, though, life, and time, and events overtake me, and the daily duty gets set aside in favour of more important things, like sleep.


Calendar page for November with a bas-de-page scene of men on a hunt, from the Golf Book (Book of Hours, Use of Rome), - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/11/a-calendar-page-for-november-2013.html#sthash.SSWQvaxE.dpuf

These diaries of mine are in various notebooks and journals scattered all over the house. I came across an old one recently - probably dating back to 2005-ish - I can't remember the details exactly. The thing is, so much happens, so much goes on, that within even just a couple of days I will have forgotten most of what happened last week or yesterday, or even this morning.

I have spent an intense day, today, working with a colleague teaching 30 children aged 8 to 11 years improvisation and composition skills. It's been a good time, and the children managed really well, especially considering that some of the younger ones had only been learning their instrument since September. I got home an hour and a half ago, sat and had a coffee and a biscuit, and already today is a distant memory, shoved to the back of the head as I am down for teaching Sunday School tomorrow and playing the organ at the early service and we still haven't done the weekly shopping and I must remember to fill the car with petrol and put a load in the washing machine and iron three shirts and pay my Barclaycard bill and do a zillion and one things before bedtime tonight.........

The good thing about keeping a diary, I mean the journal sort, not the appointment sort, is that you get a chance to go through the events of the day and remember what happened and take stock. The bad thing is when it becomes some kind of obsessive duty that takes over your life and limits your freedom to career through the day. You choose.

Friday 29th November - early post today

Thought I'd best get today's post up early as I'm bound to forget, and at the moment I don't know if I'm going to a Christmas "do" this evening 'cos I can't remember the date of it.

Woke up early at five am - so did BestB. Can't blame the neighbour going on early shift as he didn't leave until half-past.

So we just got up early and started the day... it's only 8am-ish and I am three tasks done on the to-do-list and ready to go back to bed.

Duck!!!! Incoming!!!!

St Benedict says idleness is a Bad Thing and you should keep busy. Hah!

Life. Just random at the moment.

Tues 26th Wed 27th Thurs 28th November - Birthdaydaydayday

It's been my birthday - in fact it's been my birthday since the first present arrived, neatly positioned beside the planter on the front doorstep, at the end of last week. (Note to self - write thankyou note). I didn't open it until the real birthday.

Unlike the presents I receive from my Favourite Daughter on Sunday afternoon - it seemed a shame not to open them while she was there, so I did.   Open them early, that it.   fab - a book from my wish list, (Note to self - update relevant page on blog) and other goodies. We also had cake.

Cards and flowers arrived on Monday

and more presents (books and chocolates and flowers and other treasures) and cards on Tuesday from Best B and Number One Son and friends, (note to self - update the pages on my blog again).

Yet more presents from my parents and my Uncle and Aunt over from the Netherlands when we took a Chinese meal round to share with them on Wednesday. (chocolates, baklava, an amazing oil lamp, and, oh wow, a battery operated bubble-blowing gun. (I saw these at Niagara Falls and was very, very taken by them! The children had them, and the bubbles floated past, lit up by the floodlights trained on the falls. I don't have any pictures of the bubbles, but it's an excuse to post memories of the Canada trip from this Summer...)

It's Thursday, and it's STILL my birthday! A card from someone at work, and tonight there was cake, and a candle, and cream!

 

So, a lot going on these last few days, and not much time for posting.

 

 

Monday 25th November - First, make a plan

It's a fairly busy week coming up, with various extra tasks to be remembered and completed by various different deadlines.

I need to make this week's To-Do list as soon as possible.

Now, where is my Special To-Do pad?

Somewhere under this lot.

So that's the first task sorted then. Tidy the table.

Ugh. I think I'll go and have a bath first. And maybe read my book for a bit. And have another cup of coffee. Hang on, I've already forgotten about that cake I put in the oven. Gotta go.

Sunday 24th November - A lively morning

On three occasions in the past couple of months I have woken up feeling -

(to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands")

I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic,
I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic,
I'm alive, awake, alert,
I'm alert, awake, alive,
I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic.

There are actions; on the words

alive, pat knees once
awake, touch shoulders with both hands
alert, touch head with both hands
enthusiastic, clap on thu, stamp on sias, click fingers on tic
(or is it click on sias and stamp on tic? Does it matter?)

The point being that on these memorable mornings I have been feeling the way, the way that, - well, the way I used to feel most of the time. back then. In long-gone days of yore.

It could be the result of the various drug treatments over this past year (that have been making me feel tired, but have also improved my health), or maybe it's just a sense of emerging from a long tough year.

On the previous lively mornings, the effect wore off quite quickly, but today I felt bright and breezy and up for it and ready for action for most of the day.

Just as well - I left home in time to perform my turn on the church transport rota, collecting and looking after a resident of a local home. As I turned in, I met someone else from church coming out, with that person already loaded into the car. I followed them all the way back to church, where I discovered that I had entirely forgotten that I was on the rota as organist for the early service (luckily someone in the congregation was able to stand, or rather, sit, in for me). And, because someone else was now looking after the resident from the home, I hadn't needed to swap myself off the prayer rota that day. So, instead of being treble booked for the services, I had nothing to do except sit and be a member of the congregation. Did you get all that? No matter.

Anyway, that's probably why this morning's liveliness lasted so long!

Saturday 23rd November - that's your lot for now

just in case I forget to post during the rest of November, you can re-read one of today's bonus posts.

there's a clue to The Secret Craft Project in one of them.

Saturday 23rd November - Busy Day

Today's busy-ness started with the timely delivery of some techy stuff for our PC. I've got a vague understanding of the outlying basic broad principles of what was delivered and what it is for but I have no intention of trying to explain it to you.

Anyway, the point is that the parcel arrived in time for him to set it in motion before we went to visit my parents for morning coffee and strategic planning.

We did so much planning that coffee fell right off the agenda, what with the wide-ranging conversations, and a little interlude of taking the advantage of extra people being around for my mother to get some time in the standing frame that they have acquired;

who would have thought that we would ever have reached this point...

This time last year we were rejoicing that we had managed to spoon some rhubarb yoghurt into my mother without her choking on it. Back then, all she could do was lie, helpless, on the bed, and call for two nurses if she wanted to change her position from sitting to lying.

Afterwards, BestBeloved and I went and found some lunch, and bought some small Christmas presents, and bought some bits and pieces for my parents, and took them round to the flat, and came home, and unloaded the car, and BB prodded the computer which is still doing its important thingy with the new thingies, and had A Proper Cup of Tea (as in the earlier post).

Supper will be sandwiches (and probably more cake) and then it will be bedtime. I shall put my knitted earphones on, and fall asleep to the dulcet sound of Cantabile - The London Quartet - singing Lullabyes and Goodbyes; my current favourite track is Hushabye Mountain (from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang).

I wanted to put a link to the Amazon sample track but they have changed their website and I can't find how to get at the samples any more. Sorry.

  

Saturday 23rd November - Thanks, Norton

A small flag appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of my laptop screen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Norton has tuned your PC"

         Thanks, that's great.

















Could you do the piano, the guitar, the ukulele and the cello for me as well?

 

pictures all from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_tuning





Saturday 23rd November - Proper Cup of Tea

In honour of a Good Day's Work I have made a Proper Cup of Tea.

Real Tea Leaves
in a Real Tea Pot
with Cups and Saucers
and Fruit Cake on a Plate
and a Tea Strainer
and a Milk Jug.

Like So.

 

There are three pieces of cake because of weight watching. My new method is to eat only half of what Best Beloved has. So if he has two slices of cake, I can have one. It seems to be working, sort of.

 

I nearly ruined the whole effect by filling the milk jug with water, but luckily I spotted the mistake in time.

 

Ahhh. Luverly.

Friday 22nd November - 5 stages of change

Oh HeAVENS tO bETtSY. iT IS SO infuriating when I go to the trouble of writing a post and then don't click on PUBLISH. And what's up with capslock? Oh ok I see. Fixed. false Alarm (Saturday 23rd November)  

An unexpectedly serious post today ...



And one of the bloggers I follow added "and whisky" to this cartoon!

If you have anything to do with Change Management in your working life, then you will be familiar with the following summary of the 5 phases that people faced with CHANGE go through;

1. Shock (Denial)

2. Emotion (Anger)

3. Bargaining (If I do this then I achieve that - a kind of personal horse-trading)

4. Grief at loss (It isn't fair)

5. Acceptance (in two parts; Intellectual AND Emotional)

By Change, I don't mean change that you have chosen - like an exciting job opportunity abroad, or new career direction, or having a baby. I mean Change that is forced upon you, without your consent, maybe even without any kind of warning.

These stages can be written in different ways, but that's what they basically boil down to. By change, I mean anything from a change in working practices (I've been through that), to being made redundant (I've been through that too) or the effects of serious illness (I face up to this every day).

And I can honestly say that the above 5 stages broadly represent what everyone facing Change has to deal with. All our family - the Offsprings, and Best Beloved - have had personal experience of Change, ranging from minor to catastrophic. Best Beloved's work over the past twenty years has been, in one way and another, one of Managing Change, and leading all kinds of people, some Very Senior, and some Very Junior, through these stages.  

I think that people these days have a greater understanding of the issues surrounding "life-changing events" than maybe was possible in the old traditional "stiff upper lip" era. These days, one can express one's feelings without being told to "Pull yourself together" and "Exercise Self-Control". The advantage is that one can progress through these stages with  more awareness of what is happening to yourself.

Most people get caught in one or other of these stages for a period of months, even years. Some people manage to recognise what is going on, and move through more quickly - it's still a struggle. There is no panacea, no magic pill, to get you through the process of accepting the consequences, emotional and intellectual, of The Change.

Arriving at "Acceptance" isn't the same as "giving up", or "giving in". It means arriving at the stage where you are able to work with what you have, rather than constantly fighting to restore the un-restorable.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine



Living and moving and working through Change is exhausting. It isn't a fun or nice or welcome experience. It is debilitating. It isn't easy. But it is a consequence of being alive, of being human, of having feelings.

The past year, living through the aftershocks of my mother's stroke have been like a copy-book exercise in Change Management for every member of the family.

Meanwhile, could you just pour me another glass of wine? (I don't care for whisky).