Merry Christmas
Posted on December 25, 2009
From all of us to all of you. May your Christmas be all that you want and all that you need.
the one where it’s Christmas in pictures
Posted on December 25, 2009
The one where we get all BRRRRR!
Posted on December 21, 2009
Sunday! Sunday! It’s been snowing all over the UK for a few days. We here in Manchester haven’t (or should I write hadn’t) gotten much snow. On Sunday we woke up to bit more of the white stuff and a lot more coming down. Wal went out to start the car and it wouldn’t start. Odd as it’s a VW which should be able to handle the cold. We think it’s because the battery is the original one and the car is getting a bit old. No to be put off we called a cab, packed up the sled/sledge and off we went to church. It was a slow going but we got there! Only thing was there wasn’t a service at our church due to the carol service they were having at night. So we trudged along to the other church– we only missed about 1/2 the service… ooops!
Squidge had a fantastic time being pushed along on her sled. I especially love the fact that she is wearing her baby hat– knew I was saving if for a reason!


the one where I get all Nigella on yo a$$
Posted on December 20, 2009
Mince pies are HUGE in the UK. To me mince pies are/were things you heard about in Christmas carols and I hadn’t ever really thought about what a mince pie was. So imagine my surprise my first Christmas here when Wal was all mince pies this and mince pies that. I thought he wanted me to make him a pie made out of ground beef! Flashforward 4 yrs and this is me…

It took me about 2 hours to get all this point. I very much enjoyed doing this. I had the BBC World Service on the radio and I used my food processor– it was easy peasy. The photo above is right before I added the booze. Then it’s just a matter of letting it soak for 2 days. I made some mince pies on Friday and it was deeeeeeeelish! I’m not a huge fan of mince pies but I really enjoyed these. The benefit of making your own mince is you just leave out what you don’t like! I’m not of huge fan of citrus peel so I didn’t add any. I did add some cranberries and let me tell you folks it was just the thing to kick it up a notch. I have a couple of jars I’m giving away to friends and I’m curious to see what they think. They’re proper English folks who grew up eating the stuff so they’ll know and tell me if my mince is any good.

Even Squidge got in on the action! LOL like there was ever any fear of her being left out. She rolled out her pastry and cut some shapes. As you can see she got a bit over excited with one of the pies.

I’m very pleased with how they came out and can’t wait to make some more this week. Any guesses what we’ll be leaving for Father Christmas on Christmas eve??

The one where we get all festive
Posted on December 19, 2009

We finally have a christmas tree!! Due to Wal being away for the past 2 weeks we were really late in getting our tree. The other day we all put on our warm waterproof gear and headed out to Delamere Forest. We do this every year and I absolutely love it! Things were a bit sparce due to the lateness and I think being a week day they didn’t restock. I might be wrong on the restocking as the trees are grown at Delamere forest so once the stock is gone it’s gone– ya know?!?!

After searching among all the charlie brown trees we finally found one we liked. Although I kept telling Wal he was looking at trees that were too short he was convinced we always got one that size. Once home he conceded that we might perhaps usually get a taller one– DUH!! Regardless the tree is up and almost trimmed. We need to get up into the loft for the rest of our bits and baubles.









