Just stepping out from home for a walk to Wells, a coffee in The Swan, a walk round the Cathedral with a little window shopping on the way home.
Each Christmas I aim to make a wreath to place either on the front door, or as at this house hanging from the light by the front door. I am joining in with Cathy as usual this week and I am sure there will be Ivy and Holly on offer.
I offer up this wreath and my angst, and subsequent reconciliation for finding and being content with new rituals suited to the situation. Christmas has started to become a problem for me, but going forward, since we have now dispensensed with an annual tree, I am going to embrace the wreath as my contribution to celebrating the winter solstice and add a festive air to our home for the Christmas period. It was most helpful reading a post by Sel Calderbank, giving a viewpoint from another country and I now feel happy with a calmer viewpoint towards this period.
Here is this year's wreath.
It grew by accumulation with no plan whatsoever. The thin few strands of willow twisted into a plain circle were reclaimed from last year's wreath and stored in the shed over the year. From our workshop lead by Alison where we made table centres, I salvaged a couple of stems of conifer and green eucalyptus, and the variegated ivy comes from that growing on my side fence. That is how it remained for a few days. The ribbon came from my ribbon box and has been used of many Christmases.
It went slightly against the grain to add a few silver sprayed seed heads, but we had had the can of silver spray paint which miraculously still worked after so many years, and the seed heads were remnants from a vase made up for our reunion.
When we unpacked our Christmas tree with all the decorations we took the decision to dispense with the tree. That and several of the decorations were given away in time to be of use to some family or person. At this stage the wreath looked noticeably bare. Our neighbours really go to town with houses light up and Pippa across the road makes up the most glorious of wreaths. Inspiration then came and a few of the retained Christmas decorations were then added to the wreath, including the lights which we have had for several years. They are quite simple, not flashy meaning they don't flash, or have a timer, and require me to pop out and flip the switch on and off, no not to make them flash, but just to turn them off later in the evening to conserve the batteries.
I hope you have all had a Christmas to remember, and maybe a few lessons about how to be happier with what you achieved, and plans to find simple pleasures in the coming year.
I'm beginning to come out of 'my dormancy', we are past the shortest day, I know there are days with longer light coming, that is the main thing, it may well be colder ahead of us, but I know I can weather that. I'm not so sure about the severe conditions in North America, which make the recent run of cooler days here seem balmy in comparison. Maybe in another life I will be or was a snowdrop, a crocus, or a cyclamen but somewhere wild on a mountain side with wonderful views. I know that Jim is probably a member of the Camelia family or may even be a fern, but on this earth at present he is also our leader, and I shall therefore be anchoring my post to his.
Less about such things are over to six things relating to the garden.
1. The shelves are complete and up, and now labelled 'your birthday present' by Mr S. They are just perfect and will never need painting: hurrah!
2. This February at the HPS Snowdrop convention, I bought a bit pot of snowdrops which were not in flower and not one I knew anything about, but were divided into three and now they are up. It was worth taking a risk, not so much a big one as I was assured they were lovely, and had just grown in a large pot for several years, The descriptions for Galanthus J. Haydn which is a form of G. Elwesii does say it is an early flowerer. So until I acquire Three Ships, this is my Christmas day snowdrop.
I learnt from Cathy last week, that this time of the year a little cheat can be excused. Cathy each week is the cushion against which our arrangements snuggle in cosy formation even if we have been caught out as 'cheaters'. Cathy is very sweet and I am sure that her sticks and stones are not meant to be hurled my way but enjoyed!
I have dug deep and I believe others and I have used the following ruses:
Dried flowers and Seed Heads: three hydrangea heads not from our garden.
The lovely aqua coloured dried Hydrangea Seed Heads were kindly given to me by a fellow WI member when we attended Carolyn's home a couple of weeks ago. We all made table centre arrangements with a workshop from Alison who used to post on our get together regularly. Alison now runs Floral Acre full time. I was surprised to hear that the Hydrangea has deep red flowers, and have been promised cuttings in the spring. The Poppy Seed heads come from my garden.
No water...none required, and the arrangement will last well and will be refreshed with other props later.
Not a Vase but a platter. A beautiful hand crafted repoussé Arts and Crafts Brass with Copper decorations
Flowers not from our own garden as explained above
Flowers featured before as per the poppy heads.
There, I now promise to be good, to tell the truth and not to cheat expect if I have to!
Happy Christmas everyone, and a big thank you to our dear Cathy.
Several people recently have asked for the recipe for my flapjacks. It is difficult to give you the ultimate or exact recipe as each time I vary it a little depending on the occasion or the time of the year. I started off with Mary Berry's Fast Flapjack recipe several years ago when I bought 'Baking Bible', and over the years have adjusted it adding on the main more oats and several handfuls of 'other things'. (I shall take more pictures next time I made and update this post with them)
You can look up the tips and understand what can go wrong, and on line the recipes have different ratios compared to the book.
These flapjacks only two pieces remaining, were made for Mr S to take to his session playing trains on some large layout in Dorset, he even took flapjacks to Pete Waterman when he 'played' with him on his layout several years ago when we lived in the Midlands. They are similar to the ones I sent for Julie and Colin to enjoy with their tea after the lovely delivery of Apple Juices, a couple of days ago.
These had diced ginger, cranberries and pumpkin seeds. I'm just having one piece with half an apple for my afternoon tea as I write this.
I use goat's butter which behaves a little differently from cow's butter. Sometimes I use half rolled oats which are the larger ones and half porridge oats but have also successfully used all porridge oats or all rolled oats, when these were all that I had.
Ingredients
255g Butter
200g demerara sugar I use Billington's
100g Tate & Lyle's golden syrup
350g Porridge oats/rolled oats
In addition I have used all the following, sometimes altogether
Grated Orange Peel from one orange. Eat the orange for your breakfast!
*Five or size knobs of preserved ginger in syrup, chopped small
A handful of pumpkin seeds/sesame seeds or poppy seeds /chopped pecan nuts/walnuts/pistachios(just one handful either one of these or a mixture, more than two types is too much of a hotch potch)
A handful of dried cranberries/chopped dried apricots/raisins or sultanas/crystallized orange peel(one handful of either one or a combination)
I use an oblong 12 x 8 x 2 inch loose bottomed baking tin by Silverwood, which is ALWAYS lined with baking parchment.
I have one of those useful scales with a glass top, which can be zeroed as each ingredient is added.
Weight the butter, sugar and golden syrup into a largish pan. Heat gently till the butter is just melted, and remove from the heat. Stir whilst melting to prevent sticking to the base of the pan.
Use the lined baking tin to weigh the oats in and add to this your extra ingredients.
Tip the dried ingredients into the pan, and mix well, then pour everything back into the lined tin. Level well with the spatula you used to mix everything. This means less washing up!
I bake at 140C in a fan oven. Bake for 35 minutes or until light golden.
Cool in the tin for a few minutes then carefully transfer to a cooling rack. If they bend a little wait a little longer and they will firm up. For cutting place on a large level board or surface and cut using as long a bladed knife as you have. When I want to freeze the flapjacks I just parallel lines to the short side of the tin, and freeze lengths, and cut them into individual pieces when they are thawed.
I remember the Tate and Lyle Tins from my earliest years, and very much enjoy looking out for new limited edition tins.
* In the background is my jar of preserved ginger in syrup which sits on my worktop all the time. I buy the large bags of crystalised ginger from our Grape Tree Shop in Town, fill the jar add a couple of tablespoon of golden syrup and then top up with boiling water. It takes a day or so for the ginger to absorb, swell and for all intents and purposes is the same as the ginger in syrup. Since I reuse the same pretty and sentimental jar each time, no glass needs recycling, and I have two types of ginger on hand.
