Blogtober - Day Thirteen

It's that time of year when things become a bit of a seasonal jumble.  Where in shops, window displays and other places various celebrations become entangled.  Today as we shopped little felt pumpkins, bats and ghouls vied for attention with felted santas, robins and reindeer.  Around the corner mince pies and stollen could be found next to batty cupcakes and ghostly biscuits.  Treats also for Halloween and bonfires including 'trick or treat' bags of sweets, toffee and marshmallows.  

Pumpkins at Trentham where this year they will have a 'pick your own' pumpkin patch.  When we were children we used to carve swedes or beet from the farmer's fields and on bonfire night we would cook jacket potatoes in foil in the embers of the bonfire.

All these things together seems to lessen their impact especially if they start too early.  I like to deal with one event at a time. Having said that I have on the larder cupbord shelves two sachets of chestnut puree, one sachet of bread sauce and a very small Christmas pudding left over from last year all still with good dates on them.  I also have two packs of cards in the stationery drawer and a calendar for next year bought recently.  Do you start early or take each event as it comes along?

Talking of recently I saw on Ragged Robin's blog a week or so ago a reference to Dorset Apple cake.  We had apples that needed using and I remembered I always used a recipe from our old Cranks recipe book for Devon Apple cake which I thought must be similar so it was made.  Very tasty served with thick greek yoghurt as a pudding.

Yesterday Paul made bread but it was packed away into the freezer before I thought of taking photos so below is a photo of some he made a couple of weeks ago.

All for now.  Take care.

A Little bit Festive

After a few days staying at home nursing a cough which turned to a cold and then went back to being a cough I finally went out again on Saturday. I suppose I'm lucky as I haven't had a cold for years it had to be my turn at some point.

We decided to see what the Christmas Market at The World of Wedgwood had to offer.

By noon it was quite lively, there was live music and lots of stalls offering wonderful home made food and crafts.

It was quite cold and breezy but the forecast rain was staying away thank goodness.

Fantasy Wire who are responsible for the fairies at Trentham Gardens and other places too.

Angels at my Window - beautiful glass angels to sparkle in a festive window.

Lovely plants, flowers and door wreaths as well as beeswax candles and jars of honey.

Inside was looking very festive indeed

Shall we take a peek?

All the decorations this year were in the iconic blue and white Jasper ware colours.

Except for this table which seemed to have brought the outside in as everything was coated in a thick covering of 'frost' or perhaps it was snow.

It was all very magical,

very seasonal

with its beautiful, soft and muted colours.  As we left the shop and visitor centre where there were more stalls inside the heavens opened and that predicted rain caught up with us.  It was time to return to the car.

Today we've been walking at Ilam which is one of my favourite places.

 It was sunny but very windy and quite cold down by the river.

After our walk we sat in the car and watched redwings and fieldfares flying over the trees and resting in the bushes behind us.

 I did take a lot more photos of the river and the church but I'll show you those in my next post.

We spotted a few of these around the paths too. 

Time to settle in now and write a few more cards and letters. 

Or perhaps I'll read a few more pages of this book which I started yesterday.  So far I'm enjoying it.

Welcome December

Well, it's the first of December and although Christmassy things seem to have been around since the end of September, I've been trying not to get too distracted by it all until now. I love Christmas and all it entails but I don't like how it all begins so early that we miss out on other seasonal pleasures. I know we probably want to buy cards and start on the baking and present buying well before now but I'm sure we can do that without having 'Mary's Boy Child' and 'All I need for Christmas' blasted in our ears in supermarkets and shopping precincts from early November onwards - it takes away the magic of it all - especially for the little ones. My only preparation so far has been to make a plum pudding, to buy card blanks to start printing out our cards and stamps to post them with. I've also made a list of presents to buy and will start that next week.

We hope, if work allows, to visit the '17th century Christmas' event at Ford Green Hall next weekend and also the Mummers' play.

This time last year we spent a couple of days in York which was wonderfully festive just at the right time; here is their tree from last year - I wonder if they have the same one this year?

Another thing we usually do in early December is to visit Little Moreton Hall and listen to the festive early music played and sung by the colourful PIVA. This, more than anything else, puts me in the mood for the coming festivities although, because of work commitments we may not have time this year which is a shame because I will really miss seeing them.

I took this photo of holly at Little Moreton last year. I wonder if it will be full of berries again this year?