My 2013 Christmas decorations: wreath

After putting up all of this years decorations I looked at what was left in the box, a handful of faux foliage based items that looked chic in our old house but I've never been able to make them work here. So I let them be. Then I watched a 'how to do Christmas' type programme where I saw them using cable ties for many, many uses and I was inspired me to sort out a wreath for the front door using the odds and ends left over.

The wreath base is from an orange leafed wreath that I had purchased many years ago. The orange fell out of favour but I've been reusing this base with fresh foliage for several years. But this year it just felt too wet to gather the greenery so I had been putting it off.

Cable ties are a fabulous way to put this together. Quick, secure, I am so impressed! And if I want to re-do it next year then I can simply cut them at the back and it will simply come apart. So much easier than winding wire or, more usually for me, string around again and again to hold it together. Just a quick wrap of ribbon and it was finished. 5 minutes tops.

I still prefer fresh foliage wreaths but it wasn't going to happen this year so this has been a great compromise and has coped well with the bad weather that has hit us over the Christmas season.

My 2013 Christmas Food: Chocolate Yule Log

Yule Log

I have just found lots of photos that I haven't yet shared so though my decorations may now be down and packed away Christmas is not yet over on this blog!

First to share is this Chocolate Log. It was so easy to make that I highly recommend that you give it a go. Don't worry about making a swiss roll, just bake a normal sponge cake and leave it to cool completely. Then you can attack it with your knife, shaping it as you wish. My Yule log was made in two loaf tins, one small and one large. Despite this good start they both had to be carved quite a bit to resemble the correct shape and fit on the plate. Then they were sliced horizontally to sandwich in a couple of layers of plum jam. Finally I let my youngest have at it with lots of cocoa butter icing. Yes, an eight year old iced this cake. If he can, you can. The icing on the ends was a little that I had saved prior to adding all of the cocoa to the icing mix and I carefully smoothed this onto the 'cut' ends.

Don't bother trying to make the icing smooth, the rougher the better. A final dusting of icing (I used a tea strainer) gives a good finish.

It only lasted one day.

It tasted that good.

New Years Day

2013 sunrise

I've just read my post from a year ago and so hope that we can do it again. But the weather forecast is not looking promising so I'm not pinning all of my hopes on getting everybody up. I'm just going to make a promise to myself that I'm going to get out, even if it's just to the bottom of the garden with an umbrella, to see the sun rise. According to the BBC weather site sunrise will be at 08:13.

I love greeting the new year and I prefer to see it having had a full nights sleep rather than staying up until midnight keeping company with the tv. Of course we may yet have visitors, nothing is planned but that doesn't mean much. In my family people seem to call on the day to let us know that they are coming. I think that it's great that we can do that.

I hope that you have a great new year!

Christmas: food

Icing fondant snowman

It is amazing the wide variety of traditions that different families have. Over the years I have taken on some that I grew up with, tried to incorporate J's and have tweaked them over the years to suit us. I have also learnt not to get quite so picky with creating a perfect day!

Winter Solstice

This isn't a date that we formally celebrate but I am always happy to get it behind me. With the coming of our midwinter festival, Christmas, the winter solstice is easily forgotten but my body always notices it's passing.

As I am sat here typing I am feeling very lethargic and uninspired to do much. It is almost a type of depression except that I am also feeling just a little tingle of excitement knowing that longer days are around the corner and this understanding helps me to cope with the now. Soon, with those longer days, my energy and enthusiasm will return. So rather than curl up in my own little corner feeling sorry for myself I am going to allow myself to enjoy a few more lazy hours knowing that in a matter of days my drive to get up and do will be strong again.

Tree: real or artificial?

Holly tree.

I can't imagine Christmas without a tree. So much so that when we were snowed in 3 years ago we cut our own from the garden, a rather garish variegated holly that I couldn't wait to get rid of. It made a fabulous tree.

Christmas: decorating

Christmas tree in it's stand.

I love decorating for Christmas. But it is surprisingly hard work! As J loves to have a large, real tree it inevitably requires some kind of reorganising of our living room. I love that Christmas trees are wrapped nowadays, so much easier to deal with in the car and for dragging through the house than it used to be.

Christmas: Nativity

Playmobil Nativity

As a child I always wanted my own nativity set. I saw them in other peoples houses but for some reason (most likely cost!) we didn't have our own. As an adult I finally have my own nativity. A playmobil one!

This has been a surprisingly good purchase. My children look forward to it coming out every year and it ties in with the rest of our playmobil, primarily Romans and ancient Egyptians. I love the fact that as it is a toy I'm not too precious about letting children play with it, in fact I'm never quite sure which scene I'll see next. Did Santa visit?

Remembrance Sunday

Remembrance Sunday means different things to different people. To me it is my day of the dead, a time to remember those who are now gone irrespective of whether or not they were in the armed forces. I realise that my interpretation is more traditionally associated with Halloween/all saints day traditions but with the way that this has morphed into a children's fancy dress party I am more comfortable shifting them to this later date.

Bonfire Night

This is an odd festival. I do enjoy it but you don't have to scratch the surface too deeply to realise that it is a fervent anti-Catholic celebration. Who wants to celebrate that? But I do enjoy what this event has become and that is why I titled this post as bonfire night, not Guy Fawkes night.

Halloween update

Pumpkin storage!

Our Halloween plans all changed at the last minute. I had access to a car, an invite to my sister's and two boys who didn't fancy staying at home all day. An impromptu Halloween party!

Halloween

Halloween 2008

This festival has always been very important to my children. In the last twenty years Halloween toot has exploded off the shelves and become mainstream in this country. Now, I'm all in favour of a good celebration and don't mind this too much especially as my eldest has his birthday just a few days later so we have a fine collection of decorations for what became, until recently, his annual Halloween party.

Birthdays.

My son's birthday cake made by his brother

I had an interesting birthday. Almost no presents. It was lovely. There was no pretending that gifts I didn't want were lovely. There was no stress with organising things. I really enjoyed it!

Cheese festival

Three cheeses, a pot of hot mustard and a packet of nuts.

Our local market town hosts an annual cheese festival. So far we have visited every year that we have lived here. The first time we bought far too much cheese and now make the effort to be a bit more restrained in our choices, you can get a bit fed up with them when the fridge is still full three weeks later!

Carnival

We missed carnival this year but it is a tradition that I love. Our local is one of the earliest in the circuit which feels odd to me, as a child I associated it with being tucked up in scarves and hats that had probably been brought out for the first time that year. Here it is more of a late summer event so a light coat will usually suffice.

Midsummer gardens



The Old Button Shop garden

In summer festivals don't seem to be so important. As long as the sun keeps shining life feels good.

My personal celebration of midsummer was to search through the National Garden Scheme website for any local open gardens. I was lucky to find two good hits, the first being open on Saturday and in Lytchett Minster. This was a community event with 6 (7?) gardens open and other events at the same time. The gardens are modest in size and (as usual with the ngs) highly manicured, this really emphasised to me how I love my space here and a reminder that I enjoy some wildness. My favourite garden was that of The Old Button Shop. This was one of the larger gardens and I appreciated not being able to see everything at once. I loved the mish mash of curios scattered throughout the garden. I wish that I could get away with this but I know that anything well 'placed' would soon become buried under the weeds.



Manor House, Blandford St Mary

The second garden I saw was a 3 acre one in Blandford St Mary. I found the layout of this highly inspiring, its a place that I would love to bring the family with a picnic if only it wasn't a private home. It was a great reminder of how much I enjoy pathways, I really must find a way to incorporate more into my own space. I need to propagate lots of herbaceous planting too! I appreciate the openness that the extra space offers and I feel incredibly blessed to have almost an acre to play with myself.



May Day

I always enjoy May Day. Some years I go overboard with flowers in the house, others we get out and about. This year we've done a mixture of things over this bank holiday weekend.

May day itself, on the first, was unobserved. I forgot! But we've been having lots of fun this weekend in the garden. Yesterday we visited the event 'Siege' at Old Sarum. Whilst my boys enjoyed this my youngest's favourite bit was visiting the prototype Neolithic houses that the Ancient Technology centre group had been building in the car park. My boy has some strange reactions to buildings, he absorbs the atmosphere and just likes 'to be'. The Neolithic building was dark and slightly smoky which you wouldn't expect to grab him but he happily settled in on their woven beds and didn't want to go. This has happened before with him but usually in religious buildings such as churches or cathedrals.

Today I was planning to go to Old Wardour Castle for more May fun... but it is such great weather that I'm happy to stay home and enjoy the garden. So out there now I will go!

St George's day

Flay made by my son

We seem to have done St George's day in a big way this year. We started the week with my boys taking part in a St George's day parade through our local town followed by a fun day, organised by the scouts.

At our local home education group I decided to use the flag as my inspiration and ran up some flags using an old sheet, tearing it into rectangles and sewing a simple channel along one side. These were decorated by all of the children using felt tips. The designs were both colourful and inspirational... but I didn't think to take any photos. The one above was the only flag left over so my eldest son decided to use it for his den.

That evening we enjoyed roast beef (pot roast as it was a fairly cheap joint) followed by golden syrup suet pudding with custard. Ginger beer was appreciated by all.

What does St George's day mean for me? Not very much to be honest. It is a festival based on a catholic saint so has very little resonance for me. But as the patron saint of England it is a good time to appreciate our country and what we produce. I have heard it argued that the fact that St George was not English makes him a good person to represent the multi-culturalism within our nation. For us as a family it usually simply means that there is roast beef, that most traditional of English meals, and locally produced beer on the table. 

Easter

A first Easter egg

I love Easter. We celebrate it with our very actions as a time for kicking off projects and getting stuck in to tasks that have been put off throughout the gloom of winter. Whatever the weather we collapse onto the sofa at the end of Easter Monday feeling very satisfied with what we have achieved whether it is inside or outside our home.

I will find a few minutes to snuggle down on the sofa with my boys and hot cross buns to discuss the story of the resurrection of Jesus though they will doubtless find the mash of pagan eggs and Christian beliefs as confusing as I did as a child.

We will all munch chocolate Easter eggs on Sunday though my youngest will put us to shame as he contentedly pushes them to one side after a small nibble as he has "had enough for now". I wish that I were as in tune with my body as he is.

It is also a time in which we see our extended family, children come to stay and we have Easter egg hunts in the garden. We have a big roast meal on Sunday whilst Monday is spent desperately trying to finish things off before we go back to our normal working week.

I don't feel the need to impose any more festivity to Easter. What we have works for us and it is a celebration of Spring that we enjoy.

Cheesecake for the birthday boy.

Mocha Cheesecake

We celebrated J's birthday with a cheesecake. This was a very simple mix of condensed milk, cream cheese, whipped cream, melted chocolate and a dribble of strong, hazelnut flavoured coffee. It was delicious and I have a new recipe up my sleeve. Next time I think I'll try it with a tot of baileys. Yum.