Home from Hampshire

Morning all.  Just a quick line to let you know I am safely home again, and had a lovely few days with my dear friend T.  We laughed, we cried, we talked, we relaxed and I will soon be down with her again next month.

Here are a few photos I took of the icy start to my journey down there, from the car and the train.  I didn't take any photos of the New Forest, as intended, but next time, perhaps.

First, the frosty Towy Valley:

The tree above is a Copper Beech, and so beautiful with its filigree of frost.

Now some views of the Towy making its way to the sea, taken from the train.  Above - this one is just as we had left the station.

Llansteffan Castle.

And the Castle again, and the little seaside village of Llansteffan to the right.

Scotts Bay and beyond.

Sunrise over Rhossili Downs in the distance, taken near Burry Port.

Finally, coming home again - high tide on the Gower.

Away for a few days

Things will be quiet on here all week as I am away down to Hampshire to visit my best friend.  I'm taking my camera, so there will be some nice Forest photos when I get back.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone.

Christmas Wishes and The Oxen by Thomas Hardy

Wishing all my friends and followers a very Merry Christmas.  Hoping that 2015 will bring health and happiness and freedom of spirit.


THE OXEN by Thomas Hardy

 Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,”

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

Christmas Past IV

A piece by Norman Goodland today. He was a well-known writer and broadcaster. I remember him well from my Hampshire days, and he captured Hampshire countryside and the folk that lived there, perfectly.

CAROLLING

'Carols is funny things!  They bain't all to do wi' Christmas!  if you don't ring 'em out proper, they might not answer the door, nor gie thee nar 'apence!'

Foster Father was delivering his annual lecture tol the Baughurst bell-ringers, of whom he was Captain.  They practiced in Foster Mother's scullery, on the handbells.

I remember them - big bewhiskered men, shirt sleeved and leather belted, standing facing each other in a double row.  Flashing up the brass bells.  Checking the swing with broad thumn, to make them 'speak' in their clear, lucid tones.  It was all taken very seriously.  Standards were high; they had to be, to impress the gentry upon whom they called.

They walked from Baughurst to Wolverton, back through Ramsdell and Pamber End, and home through what was then know as the 'gypsy' village of Tadley.  Or made their way up to Heath End, aiming for the high spot of the season - Aldermaston Hall.

'We had to watch they sarvint galls!' Father once told me. 'They was always up to mischief!'

'We was invited up to the hall oncest.  We 'ad to go in through the back, an' through the kitchens, y'see.  An' we left our 'ats in the kitchen along wi' they gals.

'We went in and give a tune or two to the Master and the Mistress, and them as was there.  They gie us a sovereign!  They told us to go back to the kitchens and Cook would gie us a drink.

'So we done that.  And when 'twas time to get on, they gals was round the door away from the light.  An' they wouldn't gie us our 'ats until we give 'em a Christmas kiss.

'Waal - you never put yer 'at on inside a gentleman's 'ouse, luk.  So we put 'em on outside in the dark - so we didn't see what was gwine on. Anyways.  We went on down to the Hind's Head, t'other end o' the street.  We went in, took off our 'ats - an' everybody started to laugh! We didn't know what to make on it!  'Til we looked at each other - an' then we seed we 'ad white 'air - like a bunch of old men!

''Twas they sarvint gals!  They'd put flour in our 'ats - whiles we was a-carollin' for the Master!'

Father and his bell-ringers faced some competition from other Christmas and New Year rounders - the village bands of the time - The August Hill Drum and Fife Band.  The Temperence Bands, one from Tadley, one from Baughurst.  But it is said at the end of their rounds, the Temperence Bands were no more temperence than Father and his bell-ringers, when they came to clanking up the garden path well after midnight, to collect their bicycles and wobble their ways home!

Christmas Past III

Food, Glorious Food by Irene Soper

November the 26th really sees the start of the preparations for Christmas in the New Forest.  For that is the traditional date on which the Gypsies are allowed to start picking holly to sell at local markets and to make wreaths.  Already they have filled their sacks with moss fathered from the boggy paths on the side of the hill above Abbots Well.  This moss is used in the foundations of wreaths.  One old Gypsy lady living in the village can always be seen at that time of year colourfully dressed in a long skirt, short coat with flowered apron and headscarf, pushing a pram overflowing with holly towards the town.

Our small local Forest town Fordingbridge is a throng of activity as the festive season progresses.  Outside the butchers shop hang rows of hares, pheasants and turkeys.  Lighted Christmas trees shine above every shop and in the square, people gather to sing traditional carols around the bigger lit tree.  Back in the village the carole singers find their way along the dark lanes by the light of a lantern on a long pole.  At one time carol singers on Christmas Eve were given a warming spiced drink.  The Christmas Wassail Bowl was usually composed of a strong ale, the froth of roasted apples, cloves, cinnamon, and a grate of nutmeg, ginger and brown sugar.

Through the open doorway of the village church comes the sound of more carols sung, this time to the accompaniment of the local silver band.  Approaching the church, our pathway is gilded by the glowing colours of a stained glass window.

Inside a huge Christmas tree stands shining with coloured lights and cascades of gold and silver tinsel.  Every seat is filled and after the service coffee and sandwiches are served in the adjacent hall where everyone can meet and discuss the coming festive season.

On Christmas Eve the kitchen is a very busy place.  Although the cake and puddings have been made for several weeks, there are still the mince pies to make, the chestnut stuffing to prepare, the trifle to make and the cake to decorate.

It was once the custom in the old farmhouses to serve a dish called Frumenty for breakfast at Christmas-time:

FRUMENTY

One dish of crushed whole wheat, sugar, spice and raisins and skimmed new milk, simmered in a jar in the oven, or at the back of the stove overnight.  It can be eaten hot or cold.

On the farmsteads, it is possible a fat capon was served for Christmas dinner, and most likely in some more remote cottages a joint of venison would grace the table at the Festive season.

After a traditional Christmas lunch in the middle of the day, only a light tea was wanted.  This was usually eaten around an open fire, and was probably just a sweet.

CHRISTMAS FIRESIDE WASSAIL BOWL (a delicious sweet)

Half a pound of macaroons, six penny sponge cakes (trifle sponges), one ounce of powdered sugar, raisin wine, two ounces of raisins and two pints of custard.

Crumble the macaroons and sponge cakes into a large glass dish, mix with the sugar and raisins and saturate them thoroughly with the wine.  Prepare the custard and pour over the whole of the above, stirring gently to mix perfectly.  After it is cold, garnish the surface with blanched sweet almonds and glace cherries, and serve from the dish . . .


Taken from "A Hampshire Christmas" compiled by Sara Tiller.

Just sometimes - a gleam of pure green (!!!)

With a nod to Blackadder in the title  . . .

Isn't it gorgeous? Such an intense patch of colour to brighten the bleakest of winter days . . .

Back to Christmas themes tomorrow.

Christmas past II

Extract from "A West Country Christmas":

"In Somerset, it is recorded that on Christmas Eve the festivities would include a feast of hot cakes and nuts, washed down with a drink made up of mulled or warmed ale and spice roast apples.  The cake found favour in Cornwall too, so we learn from the English Illustrated Magazine for December 1903: 'In days gone by, every Cornish housewife provided "the Christmas" or the Christmas cake for her household.  This was a small saffron or currant cake for presentation on Christmas Eve, to every member of the family and to each guest and the custom was for everybody to taste everybody else's cake by way of good fellowship.  This practice is nearly out of fashion but was in evidence last year in some cottage homes near Redruth.'

Decorations formed as much a part of Christmas in times gone by as they do now.  Mistletoe, for instance, can be traced back to the Druids, who were convinced that the plant had magical properties.  A parasite chiefly found on oak and apple trees, the Druids called it a "Curer of all Ills".  They considered that the trees on which it grew were sacred, and that the birds which visited their branches were messangers from the gods.  When mistletoe was required for a religious ceremony, it was gathered with great care by a priest, who used a golden sickle to remove it.

Devonians believe that their county was cursed by ancient Druid fathers, who had decreed that mistletoe should not grow there.  There is no record to explain this believe but there is an account of a gentleman who possessed an orchard, one half of which lay in Devon, and the other half in Somerset, the division of the two counties being marked by a deep ditch.  On the Devon side of the ditch, the apple trees were free of mistletoe, whereas on the Somerset side the parasite grew in great abundance.  Every effort that he made to cultivate it on the trees in Devon failed.

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Christmas ws not always remembered with fondness.  Here is Martha's take on it (she lived with her husband Ned at Whiddon Down.  She was asked, does she look forward to Christmas as much as the children obviously do? :

Well, I do and I don't.  Us don't really like Christmas.  Something always goes wrong in our house when 'tis Christmas.  It has done ever since we've had the children small, you know.  One Christmas I remember I said, 'Put the turkey in the oven.'  Us done our work, then went to church, and then come home and had our dinner.  Then I helped out with the Christmas pudding.  Well, there us was sitting around in the kitchen, eating our Christmas pudding, and enjoying it because it was a beautiful recipe of my old mother's, and suddenly one of the boys starated to cry.  I said to Father, 'There's something wrong with that boy.'  I said, 'Look at him.  Get over and pat him on the back.'  So Father went over and give the boy a good pat on the back and the boy went a bit purple and spluttered and managed to tell us that he'd swallowed the sixpence!

Then I remembered another year, when things didn't seem too bad and I thought, 'Now this is better, this is going alright, this is.'  Us had got through the day pretty well.  Us had had tea, and then us went in front room, you do that Christmas night don't ye?  You light the fire and it smokes all day - it doesn't burn right until it's time to go to bed - but you sit there with your eyes watering and stick it out when all of a sudden one of the boys started to cry again.  I thought, 'There you are!  I thought that it was going too good to be true.'  The boy kept pointing to his ear so I said to father, 'Get on and have a look in the boy's ear.;  Well, he lit a candle and nearly set fire to the boy!  I swaid, 'Why don't you go in the kitchen and get the flashlight?'  So he come in with the flashlight and looked in the boy's ear.  'Cor Mother,' he said, 'You'll never guess what I've seed.  You want to look in the little boy's ear.'  So I did.  I took the torch out of his hand and looked in the boy's ear and, to tell you the truth, I nearly passed out.  Do you know when I looked in that boy's ear, there was an eye looking at me.  It was only the eye off his teddy bear, but you have a glass of sherry at Christmas time and look in somebody's ear and see an eye!  It don't half give you a turn!'


I think she must have had more than the one glass!!!