It continues

 We're now in full blown festive mode and it started with the Strauss Christmas concert last last Friday.  Tomorrow,we're having our whist Christmas lunch. Monday we have friends coming for a festive evening and then next Saturday I'm out for a Christmas meal with friends.. We're just heading home after buying Tony another Christmas jumper 

Bring it on

 If Christmas isn't your thing you might prefer to stay away from my blog for a while. We're full on Christmas here in Kemp Castle. Here's our latest bit of daftness 

Christmas 2025

 Well it's begun... we've started Christmasifying every inch of our house. It takes a few days to get everything just right but here's a little snippet. 

Tomorrow we'll continue and hopefully by Wednesday we'll be fully festive. 

And look what one of my friends left on our doorstep this morning.  I've no idea who left it but it was a lovely surprise 

It's a huge bar of Cadbury dairy milk chocolate. 

Fresh picked Bell Pepper

 Last night Tony and I went to the Strauss Viennese Christmas gala. We started going three years ago and now I feel well and truly ready to make a start on Christmas.  The Dec's are coming out of storage tomorrow. It'll take a couple of days to put everything up and then I can relax and enjoy the whole of the festive period.  We've got a lot of entertaining planned between now and New Year so I'll have to keep an eye on the amount of food I consume.  

This morning I picked the beautiful red pepper and added it to a tray of chicken drumsticks. I've made a lemon pepper, chicken tray bake this morning and it'll be lovely when we get home tonight. We'd gone to a local Asian supermarket yesterday and stocked up on all manner of spices.  Originally we went to buy some different varieties of sweet potatoes as I'm planning on growing them next year. Of course we spent far more than we planned but we're well stocked up now.

Pickled red cabbage and a wander around my garden

 The other day Tony and I popped over to Northallerton.  While we were there I bought a beautiful fresh red cabbage. Quarter of it was used the same day in a stir fry. Yesterday I shredded half and pickled it in a sweet vinegar made using my own saved coriander seeds and some mustard seeds from a friend. I added a couple of fresh bay leaves to each jar and once cool I popped the bars into the fridge. Next year I hope to put a cupboard in the garage for storing pickles and jams. My garden continues to provide me with beautiful fresh veg and it won't be long before the sowing starts again

A bit sad

 Today when we went to play whist we came across something that really struck home... but first a little car bump.  While we were driving to whist an older man strayed from his lane approaching a roundabout.  He hadn't been sure which lane to be in and probably wasn't concentrating. He nudged our car resulting in a tiny scratch.  Tony was all set to leap out and blow up at the poor bloke. I insisted he calm down as the poor soul hadn't intended to hit our car. On inspection the chap's car was more scraped than ours. He was shaking like a leaf and explained that he was taking his wife to hospital for an operation.  Honestly, the damage to our car was so slight that I  asked Tony to just let it go. I could have cried at the relief on the man's face. His poor wife was close to tears too. Anyway that wasn't what made me sad. When we got to the church where we play whist there were three small tents near the church door. Clearly three homeless people were sleeping rough there. There was no sign of them or I'd have bought them some groceries.  How can our government find spaces in hotels for migrants while our own people sleep in tents in freezing conditions.  The world doesn't seem very fair these days. 

Christmas lights

 Tony and I are heading home from whist. We're amazed at how many people have Christmas trees and lights already. It's getting earlier year on year.  We should have been going to a ceilidh tonight but it's just too cold and dark.  We really can't be bothered,  especially as we're going to one tomorrow. 

First snowfall

 As I type this it's snowing great big goose feather sized flakes. It'd been snowing since first thing this morning but the ground is too wet for it to lay. There's a little dusting scattered over the borders and shrubs but definitely nothing to write home about.

Yesterday my friend came over for a couple of hours so I made a quick chocolate sponge cake in the microwave when I got up. I decorated it with a gorgeous chocolate ganache made with double cream and dark chocolate.  Tony was a happy man when he got home and saw a lovely big slice waiting for him. I gave my friend a couple of slices to take home with her. It stopped me being tempted to scoff the lot. We had a lovely catchup over hot chocolate and cake.

My pepper is almost red enough to pick and it'll be going into a stir-fry in a few days. I'm tempted to take the cucumber plants out now but want to give the last of the cukes chance to develop.

Blimmin freezing

 Crikey the weather has changed.  Shouldn't really complain though as the mild weather seems to have gone on forever this year. We're just heading home from carving club in Bowburn. Good job club night is today as Bowburn is forecast significant amounts of snow tomorrow. Winter is definitely on the way. 

Oh no. What have I done.

I'm not averse to chopping my hair when the mood takes me and I'm usual not too bad at it. Gawd knows what I've done this morning though as I now look like a cross between a scarecrow and a birds nest after a storm.  Thankfully my usual hairdresser can rescue it for me and has often in the past. Unfortunately she's away until Friday so I'm going to have to walk around with a bag on my head or hibernate for a week.  At least it'll have grown out nicely by Christmas.