Driftin' on by

Birds flying high, you know how I feel

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel

Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel

It's a new dawn

It's a new day

It's a new life

For me

And I'm feeling good.

It's a New Year.

Hope you're feeling good!

Leftovers

My favourite game of the season - Bananagrams.

In Danish.

Now you must excuse me,

I have a boxed set of The Killing

to get through.

'Farvel.'

Christmas in a certain house

I will set down here exactly what Christmas still is 

in a certain house in England, how it is observed,

and all the domestic rites accompanying it

in their detail and warmth.

Of the long oaken table from out of one of the Oxford colleges

when the Puritans looted them three hundred years ago...

This table, roughly carved at the side,

has been polished with wax since it first began to bear food for men,

and now the surface shines like a slightly,

very slightly, undulating sea in calm. 

At night the brass candlesticks (for this house is lit with candles,

as the proper light for men's eyes) are reflected in it

as in still brown water;

so are the vessels of glass and of silver and pewter,

and the flagons of wine.

No cloth is ever spread to hide this venerable splendour,

nor, let us hope, ever will be.

Now the way Christmas is kept in this house is this:

On Christmas Eve a great quantity of holly and laurel 

is brought in from the garden...

This greenery is put up all over the house in every room

just before it becomes dark on that day.

Then there is brought into the hall a young pine tree,

about twice the height of a man, to serve for a Christmas tree,

and on this innumerable little candles are fixed,

and presents for all the household and the guests

and the children of the village.

It is at about five o'clock that these last come into the house

and at that hour in England, at that date,

it has long been quite dark; so they come into a house

all illuminated with the Christmas tree shining like a cluster

of many stars seen through a glass.

They are each given a silver piece and after that 

they dance and sing songs then visit the crib,

And here, again, tradition is so strong in this house

that these figures are never new-bought,

but are as old as the oldest of the children of the family,

now with children of their own.

On this account, the donkey has lost one of his ears,

and the old ox which used to be all brown

is now piebald, and of the shepherds,

one actually has no head.

Then the people of the house,

when they have dined, and their guests, with the priest

who is to say Mass for them, sit up till near midnight.

Then the great oak Yule log is brought in.

and the rule is that it must be too heavy

for one man to lift;

so two men bring it in from outside,

the master of the house and his servant.

They cast it down upon the fire in the great hearth 

of the dining room, and the superstition is that,

if it burns all night and is found still smouldering in the morning,

the home will be prosperous for the coming year.

Next morning they sleep late,

and the great Christmas dinner is at midday.

It is a turkey; and a plum pudding,

with holly in it and everything conventional,

and therefore satisfactory, is done.

Crackers are pulled, 

the brandy is lit and poured over the pudding

till the holly crackles in the flame

and the curtains are drawn a moment 

that the flames may be seen.

This Christmas feast, so great that it may be said 

to almost fill the day, they may reprove who will;

but for my part I applaud.

Extracts from

A Remaining Christmas

 Stories, Essays and Poems

by Hilaire Belloc,

given to my mother by my father for Christmas 1965.

This plaque is thought to have been commissioned

by Hilaire Belloc's daughter-in-law

when she had the house built for herself.

Digging in drawers

I ran out of wrapping paper.

This is lining paper 

and some old Christmas ink stamps

which I found in the art drawer 

 in a huge oak plan chest which now serves as

a base for a spare mattress.

It's full of reminders of past projects -

lino cutting, collage, scrapbooks,

watercolours, charcoal drawing,

stencils, reams of coloured tissue paper,

hand made papers, acrylic paints,

calligraphy equipment, badge making,

wallets of glossy photographs, origami papers,

picture frames, sugar paper, mounting boards.

Like my kitchen drawer,

it is as revealing as an archaeological dig.

Speaking of which. 

We received planning permission for a small extension,

but it must be carried out under a watching brief

from archaeologists while the ground work takes place

in order to record any items of historical interest.

This is simultaneously rather exciting,

(visions of Time Team digging

exploratory trenches, bring in geo phys equipment

and whisking me into a helicopter to survey the emerging

Iron Age settlement)

and bloody annoying because this spells extra expense

and further delay.

I once worked on a rescue dig in what is now Milton Keynes.

We scraped very, very slowly with our tiny trowels,

and washed and bagged up countless shards of pottery

before the diggers were allowed to tear the ground up.

Winter solstice visitor

Not one glimmer of sunlight

on this the shortest, darkest day of the year.

Here's some sun I saw earlier.

I think I may have made my last trip to Sainsbury's,

the one where I use up all my Nectar points.

I baked a ham.

O. made up a jar of Jamie Oliver's hot chocolate mix,

I will make waffles - a first,

and we will welcome a university friend from Chicago.

I can get her verdict on my peppermint bark.

Advent window trip

This year the theme for the advent windows

was Christmas songs and carols.

I didn't get round all of nineteen windows

so far opened, because I took an unscheduled

tumble over a step in the dark.

The main thing that you feel as you crash slowly

towards the ground is

disbelieving,

then

stupid,

then

cross.

And when you find yourself there

you take an inventory of working and not working parts

and decide that sitting on  a cold grass verge

in the dark

is preferable to trying to stand up.

Then you realise that you have absolutely no choice

and must stand up and make everything

momentarily,

a good deal worse.

The bruises from the keys in my pocket 

were the most surprising.

The rip in my glove saved me from a worse rip in my hand,

and the other hand is now encased in tubigrip

which is a good deal better than having it encased

in a plaster cast.

The first landing knee is protesting.

Squeezing a flannel is hard.

Tearing loo paper

(sorry but it has to be said)

needs an inventive solution involving your elbow.

 I am the world's worst whingiest patient

so thank you family and friends

for bearing with me.

And JofIndia

before you ask -

no, I was not all lit up!

A little Christmas cheer

Glogg Glogg.

All lit up.

Sugar high 2

It is at this time of year that I begin to read about

peppermint bark on American blogs.

It is spoken of with real affection and slight nostalgia.

Layers of dark and light chocolate are

sprinkled with crushed red and white candy canes

 and  flavoured with peppermint.

I determined to make my own,

but nothing is quite the same here.

I had to use mint humbugs,

(rather more brown and white than red).
I wasn't sure if my cream was heavy enough.

There wasn't enough white chocolate in the cupboard

so I added a milk chocolate layer.

But I put it in a nice jar and saved the trimmings as cook's perk.

Then I made my grandmother's May Toffee

because that's traditional too,

and saved the trimmings as cook's perk.

The cook is feeling quite perked up now

and may not sleep tonight.

The Candle Factory

Demi-tasse cups, a Denby Greenwheat mustard pot 

and some posh yogurt jars,

wick cotton, sustainers, glue dots to anchor

the sustainer to the bottom of the pot,

pliers to squeeze the sustainer closed over the wick,

something to centre the wick in the pot,

eco soya wax flakes, a bain marie,

essential oils, (sweet orange and clove mostly),

 two pourings of the melted wax to eliminate a dip by the wick -

it's a fiddly business,

but completely addictive.

I can't pass a charity shop now

without eyeing up the china shelf for likely containers

and kind friends bring me things they find on their travels.

Some of the pretty vintage ones

have even gone into a local shop for Christmas

but they won't make my fortune

as I barely cover my costs.

It's just a bit of fun.

Fire works

Sun set.

Moon rise.

Ceremonial first lighting of wood stove.

I don't think these will last very long.

Mimosa

I was lucky enough to go to a kindergarten

that fostered an appreciation of each season.

Nature tables were preceded by nature walks

through open fields now overbuilt.

We germinated runner beans in snug

cocoons of pink blotting paper

coiled into jam jars.

About now we would sit a fat hyacinth bulb

in its jar and hide it in the cupboard.

The school garden provided chinese lanterns, honesty,

conkers, sycamore seeds, and sticky buds to unfold

in the warm classroom.

Most of the classrooms were just the 

large reception rooms of an old house

and on each landing there was a grandmother clock,

which, should we need to go to the indoor loos,

we had to run past. 

They had faces and anything might be hiding in the long case.
The bookshelves smelt peppery and I quickly exhausted them. 
Only Greyfriars Bobby was left to read
and I knew better than to open that.

In the basement kitchen, Minnie the cook 

laboured over the boiling cabbage,

and set out the milk crates with 1/3 pint bottles for break time.

I went home for lunch and was spared the cabbage

and the after lunch sleep, but there was no escaping

 the slightly curdled milk on a warm day.

The bread man called at the back door

with his basket of loaves

and called me Lucinda.

Fire drill meant climbing out of the huge sash windows 

into the front garden.

One of the classrooms was outside in a pre-fab

and the walls were soft gloss painted asbestos boards.

The main block of miniature toilets 

was no more than a glorified shed 

smelling wonderfully of creosote.

The Health and Safety brigade would have had conniptions.

There was a rose garden with a stone bench

 (on which we sanded and smoothed our hands)

and an arbour of New Dawn.

A slope in the lawn was there for rolling down

in our brown gym slips.

The formal playground had three graduated metal climbing bars

on which we dangled and perched, 

two legs over and swinging forward terrifyingly 

towards the unforgiving tarmac,

or for the more circumspect, one leg hooked over

and swinging backwards which for some reason 

was called a strawberry basket.

There was a sand pit and a wildly dangerous rotating see-saw.

One new girl was a fast runner and we would call her:

'Dido!' 'Dido!'

'Come and push us.'

And she did. With her skinny legs and her skinny plaits.

But one day she tripped and fell and was badly hurt.
We spun giddily over her prostrate body.

Miss Gwendolyn Harris played the piano and taught us our tables

which we chanted.

Six sixes are thirty six.

Six sixes are thirty six.

Miss Macpherson was stern and told me to sit still

when a wasp came into the room.

I did and it stung me on the knee under the desk.
When I screamed she made me stand in the corner of the room.


We had 'News' once a week.
You could bring 'Showing News' or 'Telling News'.
One girl brought a different foreign doll 
from her vast collection each week.
You waved your hand urgently to be chosen to go up.
I waved my hand stretched as high as it would go
and never expected to be chosen.
Fatally one day, I was called to front.
I had nothing to say and nothing to show,
but I fished desperately in my blazer pocket
and found an elastic band.
I produced it with a flourish.
'It's magic,' I said.
'It will fly to the back of the room and return to me.'
The class looked impressed.
Miss Macpherson looked dubious.
I pinged it and it landed at my feet.

Miss Marjorie Butler was tall and gentle. 

She gave me mental arithmetic sums to do

because I begged her to on walks.

She read to us and let us draw.

I remember loving Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh.
I never wanted it to end.

And what has opened these flood gates?

The cool, fresh air smell,

of mimosa.

Green flames

My first bowl of Paperwhites

were up and over in a blink of the eye.

I started again and am willing them to last

until Christmas, but I swear I can hear them

growing.

The heating is restored,and the mild weather 

helped to minimise the inconvenience,

but it was a good excuse 

to warm up some apple juice with

cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice and brown sugar.

It's nice on muesli too.

Chilly perch

The central heating has broken down.

Fab gear

I don't think I was quite old enough

to be a smart young chick in 1964 

and I certainly couldn't afford a Tuffin and Foale dress,

but the article was right,

Habitat did reach out into suburbia

and I was able to get my fix of

stripped golden pine and chicken bricks eventually.

I still have the butcher's block

and the soup tureen, 

although lately I have been planting hyacinths in it

as transferring the French Onion Soup into it from 

the Le Creuset is just too much trouble.

In the rather sparsely labelled exhibition,

The Way We Live Now at the Design Museum,

they were marking Sir Terence Conran's 80th birthday.

What a busy man he has been.

See here for his own not quite comprehensive list -

he omits to mention writing his many books.

His cookery book is well thumbed on my shelf.

Elizabeth David was his guiding light.

He opened a restaurant in Neal Street, 
Covent Garden in the early 70s
 and we went there for our lunch on our wedding day.

The new Habitat catalogue was eagerly awaited

and pored over. 

Cork mats, bean bags, duvets

and cheery enamel coffee pots

were all so wantable.

There was, as the article said, 

'a feeling, particularly among young shoppers,

that they want to make shopping for the home

an impulsive, gay affair.'

If only I had been consulted,

I could have helped them with the curating of this exhibition,

and not only with my pertinent reminiscences.

They displayed one of his original fabric designs for

David Whitehead,

and I just happen to have a copy of 

House and Garden from April 1953

in which it is advertised.