Monday 27 December 2021

Getting organized

 Llanelwedd Quarry on the edge of town.


I have to say, once Christmas is over I would happily pack everything away pretty swiftly.  I am NOT a Twelfth Night person - here it is New Year's Eve when everything goes back in the boxes and we face the New Year all sorted.

I began this morning by baking another loaf, as the one I made yesterday(using the steam function in my new oven) soon got eaten.  So now I have another nice crusty Coburg shape loaf using half Oatmeal flour and half strong plain.  The crust is studded with Pumpkin Seeds. Yesterday's didn't stay around long enough to cool as we had it for lunch with a cheeseboard, and very good it was too.  

I have also set to and done the ironing mountain - half of which was king size bedding, but at least it's all done now.

    Christmas was very enjoyable, and it was wonderful to have all our family here under one roof this year.  Everyone took a Flow Test (us included) before our get-together.  On Christmas Eve we had our favourite venison casserole, using the Antony Worrall-Thompson recipe I've been using since it was first published in a magazine in 2007.  Christmas lunch was a gigantic turkey-sized Capon, cooked to perfection.  My contribution to the meal was the Chocolate Roulade and the washing up afterwards (6 bowlfuls!!). Thank you kids. Yesterday D made his fabulous Rum &  Pineapple Ham, and we have some more to finish off today.

    Strangely, I have had no appetite, and wasn't too bothered about wine either, or chocolate, and I have lost 3lbs in 3 days.  Let's hope I can keep that up!

    I had some lovely gifts, including colourful new towels to match the new bathroom.  FINALLY I can pension off some of the ones inherited from my mother-in-law who bought towels in the January sales every year. I prefer to choose my own! I have the new Diana Gabaldon book to read, some murder-mysteries set in Wales in the 1850s, William Morris themed things, and things I actually needed and asked for.  T, amazingly, found the exact thing I had been looking at and thinking of buying when I saw it at an Antiques Fair.  It was a little horse shoe, bound with coloured ribbons (faded now) and with a ribbon and a riding hat in the centre.  She found hers in Aberystwyth though!

    Now, despite the rain, I need to get a walk in and the bins out.  I hope you all had a lovely Christmas too.

Update:  two walks have been had today - a short one in the park with K, and then a longer faster one on my own.  Too much sitting makes my hips hurt, so I want to get into increasingly longer walks again as the weather improves.

    We still have our son D here - first of all his 12.20 train was cancelled, so his plan was to catch the 4 p.m. and then THAT was cancelled.  Since he had booked a ticket for the first, and not had any text to tell him it was cancelled, and the same again for the later train, he has fired off an irate email to them.  The Heart of Wales Line is a quiet one - one or sometimes two carriages which travel between Swansea and Shrewsbury (very slowly though!)  Free concessionary travel has been returned to it from October to March.  D has to pay of course.  So now we have offered to drive him home tomorrow - that way we can be sure he will get there.

    The large capon (chicken) has bee stripped and is now bubbling away in my jam pan in the company of leek leaves, carrots, onion etc for soup stock.  Tea is chicken curry and cold cuts for Keith.

    Hint to weather - mild is nice but some sunshine would be delightful.


    

7 comments:

  1. We are in the midst of a big freeze, and had a major snow storm roll through yesterday and this morning. Skies cleared this afternoon and our oldest son headed out to see friends before heading home.

    Youngest son is still here, though right now he is napping before supper. I have a feeling that he plans on leaving tomorrow or perhaps the next day.

    Your Christmas sounds lovely.

    God bless.

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    1. There's been snow in places up in Scotland over Christmas, and the North York Moors got it too, but here it has been pretty mild and just grey and rainy.

      I hope you had a lovely Christmas with your sons there.

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  2. So pleased you were able to have your family around you this year. Sounds as though you had some super food and presents.

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    1. We had a good time RR. It was lovely to have everyone under the same roof. Now we are just down to Tam and her boyfriend J.

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  3. Sounds like a good Christmas, especially the food. My three have gone back as well, trains are a bit iffy at this time of the year, and they put buses on for inter travel between stations. Just wish the weather would cheer up, I'm being taken to Heptonstall on Friday for a treat and to get away from the valley atmosphere.

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    1. Our Heart of Wales line just pulls trains at the last minute and NO buses laid on at this time of year. I am guessing staff are off with Omicron, as it's sweeping the country. I've just looked up photos of Heptonstall and it looks delightful.

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  4. How lovely that you were able to have the whole family together for Christmas. Hope you were able to get your son home ok.

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