Saturday 30th November - on the blocks, ready to go...

 

Advent calendar drawers filled - tick. I had a quiet half hour while BB was off on a 'rescue'; somehow a tissue (or several!) went through the washing machine at my father’s flat, and the whole place was a winter snow scene. The quantity of tissue fragments was too much for our little handy rechargeable vacuum, and my father had already called his regular cleaner for help. Her dirt-busting vacuum made short work of the paper snow, thank heavens. But the kerfuffle gave me time to fill the drawers in both calendars.

The basket on the wooden box to the right is a bit of a mystery... when I unwrapped my son's irthday present to me, 24 numbered envelopes fell out addressed to both me and BB. The first one had the additional instruction 'open on 1st December'. 

Later in the afternoon I ironed the larger pieces of felt in readiness to start my Corinne Lapierre Advent calendar ready for tomorrow.

I have read tomorrow's pages, just for a 'heads up' and I'm glad I did, as I'm going to need both large pieces. The big brown piece is the background, and the greenish piece will become... well, that's another mystery for now!

I'll take the Advent book that Ang sent me upstairs tonight so that I can read the first chapter in the morning

Each day is themed on a Christmas carol. It's the book written by a Pastor from Kalamazoo!

And, of course, my Jacqie Lawson calendar starts tomorrow. Looks like it will be a full day, every day until Christmas! 

Friday 29th November - Miscellany

 I have learned from my Marks and Spencers Strawberry Sundae episode on Tuesday! 

Today we broached the diddly little birthday cake also from M and S

The Sprinkle cake. It's supposed to provide 4 sensibly sized portions. So when it came to morning coffee time, and afternoon coffee, BB had a quarter of it each time, and I had a slither, not even as much as an eighth. It is so rich that I was more than satisfied. 

BB had 'earned' his slice, walking into town to do some errands and setting about various household tasks.

I 'earned' my slither when we went out together for a little walk around Polesden Lacy. There was a beautiful clear blue sky and a - shall we say 'fresh' wind. Warm in the sun, but bitingly cold in the shade or walking into the wind.

There is a fairly steep path down from the car park yo the house, but when we were ready to go back up, BB was able to nip inside the big house and ask them to call the buggy. So we were driven in style right up to our car in an electric buggy all decked out with fairy lights.

No photographs; the rose garden was all ready for winter. The warth dug over, roses pruned and grass all mown. It looked immaculate. 

Here is the the November stitching from Ang. She has used fine net and voile to create the poppies, and covered it all with gauze, so that they are 'beyond the veil'. Very evocative. 

And here is mine. I started stitching it halfway through November, and wanted to represent the growing excitement I feel once we get closer to my birthday,  and Advent and Christmas.

Mine is quite small, because I used just half of a Japanese style printed charm square. I wanted the blue background to suggest the darker, longer nights, and then loads of colours for the excitement. I managed to add the metallic rainbow glitter filament to the green/blue variegated thread as well!

Thursday 28th November - Advent Knitting

 I don't think I'm actually going to do a specific Advent Knit this year. I'm trying to focus on completing various slow-moving knits on the needles rather than (oh so tempting) start another one!

But if I did want to do an Advent knit, and I suspect these ideas would take me beyond Christmas,  I would embark upon stash busters like log cabin knitting 

https://www.ourdailycraft.com/2024/11/21/log-cabin-knitting/

Or the mitred square blanket. I think the number of stitches, the thickness of the yarn, and the needle size doesn't really matter as long as you are happy with the appearance  - not too tight, not to loose, and then are consistent throughout the knit.

https://www.louisetilbrookdesigns.net/everyday-knitter/2020/2/18/how-to-knit-a-mitered-square-blanket

They are both knitted entirely in garter stitch which makes for an easy time. Somwhere I read that one should go up a half size, or even a whole size in needles if you are knitting rows and rows of garter stitch. Poncho number 1 was chunky yarn on 6.5mm needles (I think), and poncho number 2 was aran weight on 5.5mm needles.

I've made several mitred square blankets of various sizes. One day I'll learn the knack of persuading all my decreases to run in the same direction.  Until then I'm happy to embrace randomness!

I have a feeling I didn't actually post yesterday; I discovered it in drafts this evening! I was pretty shattered by the end of the day!

Wednesday 27th November - what a day!

 What a yesterday, what a today! Indeed what a day before yesterday!

It suddenly became too late to write a blog post. My birthday presents cards, ecards, whatsapp messages, visitors and emails seemed to be arriving in a non- stop procession from Monday evening through to this afternoon, so that I began to feel quite dizzy...

Plus Ang's November stitching arrived - simply beautiful- and we met with friends for a decided chilly lunch, that is, warm hearts but cold fingers and toes. That's how you know your friends, when they don't flinch at the idea at sitting outside for lunch during a window of dry weather between Storm Bert and Storm Conan..

On the bridge crossing the floodplain. Somewhere in all that water is the River Arun

One of them had a hot water bottle on their lap... an idea I shall copy. We took the opportunity to do a Notebook Swap as well as a presents exchange.

I foolishly ate TWO Marks and Spencers Strawberry Sundae Tarts after lunch yesterday in lieu of a slice of birthday cake. Reader, I implore you, learn from my mistake. Today I divided some of the Cutter and Squidge chocolate ganache brownies, one of my birthday presents, into quarters. A quarter,  or maybe half a square is all I can sensibly manage Himself has no problem enjoying a whole piece, or even one and a quarter, but he says they are so deliciously rich and chocolaty that one and a half would be a mistake!

Now I am sitting here surrounded by books and gifts and goodies and don't know what to pick up next. I've read a chapter of each of my books, to try and choose which one to read first. Except, of course, the Corinne Lapierre Advent Calendar that you are supposed to read just one day at a time. The instruction booklet comes with a strong elastic band to hold the subsequent pages closed and prevent you peeking ahead by accident. Of course there is nothing to stop one from throwing the elastic band away and doing whatever you please...

Monday 25th November - the season of gifts

 has begun early

in that BB came back from an early trip into town with red roses...

I do dislike staring at an unlit fire, so to have a vase of flowers to look at is wonderful.  The red roses - so romantic  - convey a sense of flames as well. I've decided to choose vivid yelkow/orange/red flowers for a vase before the gas coal effect fire through the colder months in future. 

We don't use the fire, indeed haven't done so for years as the house is well insulated and warm enough without the extra heat. Also since I started using oxygen all the time it would be foolish, nay, dangerous to have any kind of naked flames. So we have changed all the candles to battery ones over the last couple of years for the same reason. 

I gave my father his Christmas present now. When your parent is older and frailer and with underlying health problems it makes no sense to hang onto gifts... especially if it is something he would enjoy right away.

I sent off for a blanket from the RNLI shop. You can't specify the colour, but it was similar to the second one down in the picture, very light, made from recycled wool. We left him looking very comfortable with it tucked over his legs.

Then a friend arrived with an early birthday present. I opened it right away so she could watch (or maybe so I could enjoy it all the sooner?) It is a lovely nature-through-the-year art journal which I shall really enjoy using. It is full of interesting and inspiring quotations like this...

Sunday 24th November - Stir up Sunday

 Next Sunday will be the First Sunday in Advent, and coincidentally the 1st December. One of those rare years when the beginning of Advent and the beginning of Advent calendars coincide. 

Traditionally called Stir up Sunday because of the prayer book collect for the day,

'Stir up, O Lord, we beseech you, the wills of thy people...'

But we didn't follow the tradition of making the Christmas pudding. After last night's blustery winds we were 'stirred up' into action to deal with the consequences in the garden.

The first casualty was a pot, planted with bulbs and primulas, now looking sad and dishevelled after a garden wasted bin fell across it. We've moved both to safer places.

But, why have we got a greenhouse in the kitchen?

We went round the side of the house and found the greenhouse tipped on its side, in spite of being weighted down with half a dozen bricks. We did our best to rescue the contents, and set about finding a more sheltered place for it. Meanwhile we dumped the greenhouse in the kitchen to stop it blowing  away.

The greenhouse sits on what's left of an old wooden table, and as you can see a bit of work was needed as the wood is now beyond rotten.

Everything is back now, and I've re-potted the plants and put them back. Fingers crossed it survives tonight. 

We've got off very lightly; Say a prayer for some friends in the next village; the flat roof has lifted off from their son's bedroom, and the forecast is rain and wind all night. I hope they've managed to get a tarpaulin of some kind over it until someone comes tomorrow lunchtime. 

Who remembers the Great Storm of 1987? The wind was battering ferociously at the bay window in our bedroom all night, We woke up to find all the glass from our neighbour's greenhouse had blown into our garden!

I love this Ted Hughes poem;

Wind

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up -
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

Saturday 23rd November - Successful Saturday

 Nearly all caught up...

What does one do on a wet and windy November afternoon?  Make a pot of tea and settle down to do a bit of 'catching up'...

I'm hoping to get quite a few things ready to post next week;

The little notebook at the top is a notebook swap  I've started with a friend up North. I wrote a bit in there, considered trying a picture but thought better of it. I tried the picture out on some scrap, and I need to have another couple of goes first,

The next book is my 'everything' book, appointments, notes, day book etc so nothing to do there, apart from a quick check to see if I've missed anything that needed doing today (no)

Third book down is the long running notebook swap. I've added to it, including an Autumn picture;

My first attempt in another book was drearily anaemic. This one was really scruffy and sludgy! So I drew all over it with the black ink in my fountain pen while the paper was still a bit damp. The paper and the pen both protested at this ill-treatment, but I'm happier with the picture now. 

Two more notebooks and a green box to go! The first was the diary; I hadn't written up yesterday yet. I've been keeping a daily page-a-day diary for about 8 years now and I wish I had started earlier. Usually I write it first thing the next morning, before I get up, but occasionally I bring it down to write up later. Very rarely, I miss writing in the diary for a day or so and then... oh dear! It doesn't take me long to forget what happened! 

The bottom book and the green box will get done tomorrow. The box is for the November stitching swap with Ang. 

Friday 22nd November - a blow for independence!

 Read the title as you like... did I strike a blow for independence, or was I unsuccessful? 

This what I ended up with, so the overall result was a win!

A small table and chair now fill the space between the front door step and the bay window. 

 I've lifted the pot of pansies off the paving onto the table as well. That corner gets all the morning sun, and is usually sheltered from the wind. So I decided I would scandalise our very conventional road of fifties semidetached houses and bungalows by Sitting in the Front Garden with my morning coffee when possible! I haven't bought a purple dress and red hat to wear. One step at a time... although, thinking about it, there's that red hat I bought for my cousin's wedding...

I've long been envious of the way my Canadian friends talk about sitting on their porch enjoying the sun. I think this far more customary over there than over here. In American novels (think 'To kill a mocking bird') the families sit on the porch and greet the passers-by. 

The sun doesn't reach out seating area in the back garden close by the house until late afternoon these days, so if I want to sit in the sunshine it has to be the front garden.

My plan was to go out of the back door, trailing my 30ft oxygen tube, and carry the lightweight table and chair up the drive as far as the lead would reach - about halfway. Then I went out of the front door, but - horrors! The lead wasn't quite long enough!

Just then a lad came along walking to the sixth-form college. Aha! 

'Excuse me,' I called. He didn't heat he, never even noticed me! He was miles away, ears full of the sound of whatever his ear phones were filling them with!

BB came hurtling out of the front door... 'I thought I heard you call'. My independence came to a sudden end, and in fact I was very grateful as he accomplished in under 2 minutes what I had spent a while doing. 

Tomorrow, if it is sunny, I shall be out there, with a cup of coffee and a magazine and a cheery 'good morning' for any dog walkers, joggers, fetching-the-milk-and-weekend-papers, and anyone else as they pass by. You have be warned!

Thursday 21st November - why have I never thought of this before?

 It's obvious when you think about it.

It's just a sheet of bought short crust pastry, sliced into rectangles. You splodge some mincemeat into the middle, brush the edges with beaten egg, top with another rectangle and bake. The recipe gives the details and timings for ovens and airfryers.

I much prefer homemade mincepies to any of the shop bought ones, especially the ones made with sickly sweet pastry, but the whole rolling out and cutting out endless circles.... I guess I might have been put off hy regularly making 8, 9 or 10 dozen pies in the weeks either side of Christmas.

This short circuits the whole rolling and cutting and flour all over everywhere process. I'm going to make smaller ones, and without the icing...

I'm all for shortcuts!

Wednesday 20th November - lost and found

 The glitter thread I've been searching for

was hidden in plain sight in one of my two main sewing boxes. I found it straightaway this morning. Of course!

Here's the view over Paris in my Adveny calendar this morning.  I love the way the scene reflects the time of day. There's a mighty bell in one of the churches which chimes the quarters.

The grey numbered baubles relate to the doors on a traditional Advent Calendar; behind each one is a surprise! 

PS I don't get any reward for sharing my enthusiasm for Jacquie Lawson calenders! They an English Company; Jacqiue Lawson has retired but is still involved in the business.

Tuesday 19th November - well I never

 And other exclamations of surprise throughout the day would have been appropriate...

I was idly scrolling through YouTube this morning, still in bed.

I'd eyed up the weather (unpleasant), checked the diary (empty), BB had brought up my breakfast, 

so why would I get up when I was warm and comfortable? 

Anyway, I tripped across this

Now I had to get up and find my patchwork box! It is so much easier than paper piecing.

I drew around a hany drinks coaster for my trial run. The hexagon came out just a touch bigger than the ones I started making a quilt with last winter, so I need to find something just a fraction smaller. 

I moved on to searching for my one skein of metallic thread, couldn't find it but made a start on the November collaboration stitching anyway. 

Then there was the first of several deliveries, none of them expected before Thursday!  The first parcel included these;

But I think I'll probably carry on with Plan B and save these for next time. They look as though I might need to practice with them first.

The other two deliveries made up the whole order which included some Christmas stuff.

Finally, another pre Christmas surprise;

I'll take another screenshot during the day... but here is my 2024 jacquielawson Advent calendar. BB sends me one every year; this year it is set in Paris. I can't wait to start opening the doors every day through December. 

Monday 18th November - Dragon-slaying

1 

Before one embarks upon a perilous quest, one needs to prepare. This meant loading thetea-tray. BB brought in the magic flower from the bottom of the gardens where he had been clearing the garden furniture from underneath the apple tree so we could watch for the first shoots of our Christmas snowdrops. A clump of cyclamen flowers appeared from nowhere a few years ago beside the apple tree and seem to be thriving in their chosen spot.

With everything to hand, what could go wrong?

I set out the 'dragons' and picked them off one by one.

They didn't stand a chance! I'll vanquish the blood pressure check and sort out the flowers tomorrow!

That feels so much better, knowing that most of the jobs hanging over my head are all done.

Sunday 17th November

Peace be with you.

Saturday 16th November - ask me what I've done today

And the answer would be 'almost nothing'.

I've looked up the price of some embroidery thread (the postage is going to cost as much as the thread!), checked out some pens, and spent a long time researching Ronald Blythe after reading this Guardian

 article; https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/16/ronald-blythe-home-nature-reserve-akenfield

He sounds as though he was a genuinely lovely man. I'm sure I read his most famous book, 'Akenfield ' many many years ago. A quick browse on the internet has turned up dozens of titles. It looks as though he is as keen on writing and reading diaries as I am; I love having books which are divided up month by month so that I can read them throughout the year. I will be adding a selection to my Wantables page in due course!

Friday 15th November - Out!

I was overjoyed to get out for an hour this afternoon. We went to the local National Trust Gardens at Nymans, meeting a friend there, with just enough time to walk round and have a coffee before 'last orders' at quarter to four, and closing time at four. I am still surprised at how soon it gets dark in the kate afternoon. Ah well, I've another couple of months to get used to it.

The Autumn colour and low evening sun was a delight. There were a surprising number of flowers dotted around

They always have an information board with flowers to look out for, but they don't seem to have included a stand of seven foot tall deep purple salvias just where the path arrives at this view (I didn't take a picture of them as I was too taken by the outlook across the valley)

The path sweeps around through the trees on the right down to the bottom of the gardens. In summer this is a wildflower meadow buzzing with bees and crickets.

When I looked back up the slope, I saw how the sun blazed through the stand of pampas grass and thought I'd see how the camera on my phone coped. 

We slowly made our way round to complete the short circle to get to the cafe. What a lovely way to end the week.

Thursday 14th November - double pleasure

If, like me, you love opening parcels, then buying Christmas presents from catalogues is the way to go...

I do try and keep lists of what I ordered from where for whom... but it's not always obvious from the outside what is on the inside. 

Great!

That way I get to have lots of surprise parcels to open all the time from now until Christmas.

Wednesday 13th November - Potions and Concoctions

I had the last of a series of hospital appointments today; a routine echocardiogram. Phew! Hopefully that's that for a while!

We had thought of going somewhere for coffee afterwards as we were done by 10am. But it was so cold and grey we decided to just come home. As we drove into our road the sun came out and the leaves on the trees were golden yellow and red-brown... too late! Home and coffee won over nature!

In the afternoon I made good on a promise to myself; to make the dried fruit drinks at the beginning of Nigel Slater's Christmas Chronicles. 

There are two jars of dried apricots in brandy, sweet wine, sugar and orange zest, and one of prunes and golden raisins with dessert wine.

They should be ready before Christmas. You can drink the liquid in tiny glasses as a liqueur, and eat the fruit with ice cream, or yogurt, or on your porridge or muesli or any way you like. I'm looking forward to trying them. 

I made plum shrub in August 2022, and went back to find the blog entry. It was delicious, again sipped from a little tiny glass (it is nearly neat rum!) The boozy fruit was good too.

https://a-letter-from-home.blogspot.com/2022/08/tuesday-30th-august-2022-too-much-for.html

My mother used to call liqueurs 'stickies'. My parents would have formal  dinner parties for maybe 16 people a couple of times a year;  four courses, rows of glasses, knives and forks beside each place setting, candles and flowers on the table, drinks beforehand and coffees, brandy and 'stickies' afterwards. 

My brother and I would answer the door, greet the guests, take their coats, hand round the peanuts and any canapés. Once they had all gone through to the dining room we used to go upstairs and watch 'Take Your Pick' and the Val Doonican show on the old TV set. 

How she managed all this without help I'll never know! 

Tuesday 12th November - The Photographer's Wife and Emminent Victorians

 I'm on a reading 'splurge' as I have a huge 'to be read' pile. Some of the books are real paper, but the majority are on kindle. That way I  can be thankful I don't have a tottering tower of books using up space.

Yesterday I finished 'The Photographer's Wife' by Nick Alexander. It's one of those 'delving into the past will reveal all kinds of family secrets' type of books. The tineline jumps between the Blitz in London (when the Wife was a small child) and 2012 when the Daughter starts digging into the past. I will almost certainly re-read it sometime.

Today I finished reading Emminent Victorians (Book Club choice), the infamous hatchet job that Lytton Strachey performed on Cardinal Manning,  Florence Nightingale, Dr Arnold and General Gordon... in the end I had to skip over to Wikipedia for a different point of view. At first sight it seems to be helo-bent on delivering spite and destruction of the reputations of these four heroes. He wrote it at the end of the First World War, and I think by then the general unthinking respect given to 'our keaders and betters' was definitely in Dec. Previous biographies of heroic figures were flattering and presented their subjects in tones of awe and admiration. They tended to gloss over such failings as naked ambition, politcal machinations and dodgy personal lives (such as a tendency to drink, religious obsession and a rather suspect freindliness towards young boys.)

Lytton Strachey was writing in a new style, revealing the less admirable side of his Emminent Victorians. 

I'm not sure how the other members of the book club will have got on with with it. I was fascinated to explore areas of history and read about people that I'd previously known very little of. But probably not a book I'll read again.

I promised myself I wouldn't START another book until I had FINISHED two! Now, what shall I read next...

I had already started 'What you want is in the libary'. I'd read the sample on kindle after it was reccomended and found it so gently charming that I downloaded it at once. I managed tear myself away after chapter 1 to make sure I did finish two books before I got stuck in. So I think that's going to be next.

Monday 11th November - Early Moonrise

 The moon has already risen by 4pm this evening when this picture was taken.

The rose in our front garden will continue to flower almost until Christmas. It was already well-established when we moved here 40 years ago. Our neighbour said she thought it was called 'Princess Elizabeth'. These houses were built in about 1955 so it could well have been planted then.

By half past four the sky was a deep blue, and the moon shining brightly in the clear sky. It was noticeably colder; I shall be putting an extra quilt on my bed tonight.

Sunday 10th November - Grateful Villages

 I am a member of a zoom church congregation serving a number of small villages in Leicestershire  - that's the miracle of modern technology that I can attend via zoom from where I live in Sussex!

Today, of course was the Remeberance Service, during which I was reminded of the Grateful Villages, where all of the menfolk returned from the First World War. The names of the fallen soldiers were read out, village by village, but three of the villages are Grateful Villages.

Another village, Leigh, in Rutland, is also a Grateful Village with this plaque inside the church

The villagers were not untouched by the tragedy of war; as an older member of the congregation pointed out, two of the men who grew up in a Grateful Village had moved to a neighbouring village, and their names were on that memorial.

I doubt there was a family in the land who did not lose a relative. 

As the leader of the service said, every name read out was a real person, a member of a family, life lost. The nemory of the deaths of both my great-uncles aged 21 and 23 continue in my family to this day.

We will remember them.

Saturday 9th November - Memories

 We met up with the offsprings this morning and my word it was parky out there...

A couple of years ago I bought thermal lined trousers and today was certainly the day for them. We meet up for 'second breakfast', sitting at an outside table as usual, lovely in the summer, but 'challenging' once the colder weather has started.

Daughter gave me some little advance birthday presents, and so my birthday has started two weeks early! Some stitch markers, which I've been hankering after, and a pack of cards with lovely bird pictures on the court cards.

'What shall we play?'. None of us could remember the games properly; we'd forgotten how to play whist, the cards are too lovely to play 'spit', which I think is also called racing demon. Daughter dug out the rules for 'cheat' from the depths of  her memory, and also a game called 'Black Mariah', neither of which sounded as they would be conducive to family harmony. 

I've a book on games and pastimes somewhere which I'll look out for next time.

We used to meet up in the olden days (before covid) for a weekend of board games and we all miss those times.

It set me to going through old photos;

Was this last November? Or the year before?  I chalked words on the pavement every day.

This year isn't the only cold November. Here's the shed window in... 2018?

I can date this one; November 2016. We went out for lunch, and a walk, on my father’s wedding anniversary, the first one after my mother died at the beginning of the year. That day was remarkably cheerful, a celebration of her life, no doubt helped by the glorious weather and Autumn leaves.

Friday 8th November - just a trifle...

 ... a trifling sort of post, of snips and snaps poached from a newspaper and a blog

This article from the Guardian newspaper appeared in my newsfeed today. I get the gardening columns. Here's the opening section;

I'd never heard of 'Persephone Days' before. I thought it's a rather charming name for this time of year.

This is the last paragraph ;

Yes, amen, and I thoroughly agree.

So this recipe from the Lavender and Lovage blog for a pear and ginger trifle chimes in nicely with this theme. Just don't tell Prue Leith or Paul Hollywood! 

This is the ingredient list. The method is more or less what you'd expect.

First drain and slice the pears. Heat them gently in the mulled wine and let them cool; leave for a few hours or even overnight. 

When you are ready to assemble the trifle, slice the cake into a beautiful cut glass serving bowl, should you possess such a vessel, or else something similar. Spoon a few tablespoons of the mulled wine over the caje to moisten it, then drain the the pears and arrange on top. Cover with custard, then blob the clotted cream on topon top.

Decorate with chopped crystallised ginger, crumbled flake and edible gold glitter...

This the picture from the blog post

I recommend the recipes on the site. They are an eclectic mixture, including many 'old-school' favourites and I have cooked a numberof them over the years.. They aren't usually 'cheat' recipes like this, but as she says, when it comes to a busy time of year, why not!

I was thinking that I could quite easily downsize this for 2, and finish the ginger cake, pears, custard and cream in other ways... the flake leftovers would already have been 'tidied away' soon after the trifling trifes were assembled...