spruced up

It's been busy in Trafalgar Square this week. I noticed this on Monday morning.

Lorries , men in high-viz jackets and cranes.

And by lunchtime this lonely looking tree.

Tonight on my way home, the square was dark but filled with people, a band playing somewhere in the corner, the crowd joining in Good King Wenceslas. The sound of trumpets - or was it cornets? - announced speeches from grand people, mayors and the like. We heard that this was the 62nd tree of friendship from the people of the City of Oslo to the citizens of London, lit up on the first Thursday of December. A present for me and millions of others from the forests of Oslo.

I've never knowingly met a Norwegian before, but the lady next to me in the crowd told me she was from Oslo. She had lived here for years but this was the first time that she and her daughter had come to see the lighting of the tree. Me too. She talked about hiking in the forests and the way that they only had white lights on their Christmas trees in Norway. We both urged them to get on with the speeches as our feet were cold and wet.

As the lights went on and the crowd cheered, we both found ourselves rather moved and a little tearful. We shook hands as we parted and wished each other a Happy Christmas.

Then off we all went.

I give you the most famous Christmas Tree in the world (probably).

three hot bottles

I have just watched the BBC weather forecast. Have you ever noticed how excited the weather people get when extreme (for us) weather is forecast? The weatherman looked positively gleeful when reporting temperatures just above freezing, possible fog, frost and snow in the north. He waved his arms theatrically across the map almost conjuring up a spell of snowy storms. "This year we are finally having a proper winter" he smiled, somewhat maniacally.

I'm not unsympathetic. I love a bit of weather. Unfortunately, though I hate being cold. When I get home, I take my outdoor coat off and put on my indoor jacket. And sometimes a scarf too, until my temperature rises. I also like to have my bed warmed before I get in. And while I would very much like to be the owner of a cashmere hot water bottle warmer, I can't help feeling that only the truly tough can deal with the raw rubbery ridges of a naked HWB.

A few nights ago, I pulled back the covers to put in my HWB and found that John had already put in two HWBs so I ended up with three. Now, who could fail to be delighted by such treasures discovered behind the covers of their bed or the door of their advent calendar on a cold winter's night?

three white bottles

It may seem rather odd to have three bottles of milk in an Advent calendar, but I think they merit some attention. I was lying in bed wondering what the time was. It was dark. There was a single blackbird singing. A train went by. Then the familiar sound of the milkman's float, the creak of the gate and the clunking of glass on the doorstep. So I knew that despite the dark, morning had arrived.

We're lucky that we still have a milkman, even if he only comes every other day (Sundays off). I know we could go to the corner shop or the supermarket and it would probably be cheaper, but I like the idea of someone being around in the early morning, seeing what is going on.

Anyway, I like milk bottles, and those bottle shaped sweets, so they're in .

countdown

I thought I'd try to warm myself up for Christmas, set myself a little project to create a pictorial Advent calendar. I thought it might make me focus a little more. So here we have day one - the Pandoro and the hazelnut stars. All of which are waiting on this set of shelves to go down into storage in the cellar. So are the shelves.

You see, I noticed that my neighbour had put these out for recycling and I thought they would go very nicely in my cellar and would encourage me to tidy it out and throw some stuff out. Except there's no room in the cellar until we do actually throw some stuff out. Get the picture? So now we have the shelves waiting in the kitchen by the door, a holding bay for all the things that are meant to go downstairs. And instead of hiding my Christmas supplies away, they are now on display with anything else that needs to be taken its proper resting place. Of course, the temptation is too much. Which is why there used to be a full box of hazelnut stars and now there is only one left. And I am going to eat that as soon as I finish writing this.

This just won't do at all.

lightening up

November is never an easy month and this year it seems to have been long and gloomy and more redolent of loss and decay than it normally is. So here is something a little lighter. It comes from the window of a little newsagent /stationers shop that I rather like in Greenwich.

I love reading home made adverts,. They range from the mundane to the oblique and totally outrageous. You never know what treasures you are going to find there. These are just two of the spoofs posted by a local comedian/ artist. There was also a great "luxury caravan" holiday ad with accompanying polaroid of a 60's brown and buff caravan ( which actually I would have been very happy to spend a holiday in). But the fountain pen ad tickles me most of all. As well it might.

Oh, and I've started buying (and having a glass of) sherry, which is always a sign that Christmas is on its way.

kitchen dreams

I unearthed this book in my cupboards in one of my recent purges. It was probably the first hardback cookery book that I ever bought. She writes well, Jane Grigson. History, provenance, poetry are woven together with lovely words like "inasmuch" and "hugger-mugger". Looking back at it now, you can see how much has changed. So many more varieties of vegetables are available. When she lists potato varieties, she suggests that you will have to grow your own to get hold of anything other than three or four commercially grown varieties. How things have changed.

And how some things have not. You see, the other thing that I loved about this book was the cover - a painting called "Cuisine Provencale" by Antoine Raspal, It was the leafy chard, cabbage and artichokes that fired by allotment ambitions. I wanted baskets full of vegetables, stripy cushions with cats on them, copper pans and cast iron pots, earthenware jugs, a wooden table, the rosy cheeks. I did not even mind the idea of washing drying. It all seemed like a tall order at the time.

I got them in the end - the pots and pans and shady kitchen

I grew the veg. The cats arrived. The cushions were sewn. Fires were lit. Soups were stirred. Washing hung to dry indoors for months on end.


It's been the same for years. No agonising over colour schemes, it's just painted over in the same shades. Some of it needs repair - the drafts from the cracks in the floorboards and the broken draining board need fixing and the chairs need re-rushing. Manana, manana.

I'm very grateful to Mrs Grigson for the inspiration.

weighing up: inside

Christmas lights are being switched on all over town, but it is the ritual of making the Christmas Cake which marks the crossing over from autumn to winter for me.

So we've assembled our long list of ingredients. We hunted around for dried peaches and pears, decided that actually it was not compulsory to include glace cherries (I've never liked them) and substituted dried cranberries, forgot that we still had half a bottle of metaxa to use up and need not have bought more. We've weighed and chopped and measured and stirred, sipped beer and slugged brandy, tested and tasted and sniffed.

I've been making this boiled fruit cake for years, not always successfully. One year I forgot to put in the butter, so immersed was I in the weighing and chopping of the long list of ingredients. Most years I scorch the top of the cake, so long does it take to bake.

The first batch of ingredients have been boiled and spiced and filled the kitchen with their lovely, wintry scents. It's steeping in our chilly kitchen. If there aren't too many stolen spoonfuls, just to see how it's maturing, and if I get the rest of the ingredients weighed up properly and if I use the right size tin, maybe, just maybe, this will be the year it comes out perfect.

Sunday.

weighing up: outside

Decisions, decisions. Which way to go?


Graveney marshes on one side, the winter sun low in the sky lighting up the sheep and reeds. Wind whistling through the wires and piercing the layers of woollens, hat and coat.

On the other side, the sea.


The sound of curlews. Lapwings in the distance. A cormorant washed up on the shore.

Saturday.

november black and white

I have been wearing too much black. I'm not even sure how it happened. I've been trying to lighten up a bit my making sure that even with my summer clothes stored away, I at least have a few bright cardigans and scarves. So I'm not quite sure how I have ended up day after day in such dark colours - black frocks, black skirts, black pants, black coats. If I hadn't splashed out on some extravagantly purple hose (ah, hose, such a lovely word) I would be completely monochromatic.

However....it was the East End WI AGM last night. Monochromatic it was not. Colourful, boozy, surreal even, it was. Two lovely ladies came from the Essex Federation to explain the arcane governance arrangements and how to conduct an orderly AGM. They managed heroically, though I got the impression that they don't have Brazilian themed AGMs with strong cocktails in rural Essex. I hope we don't get excommunicated for misbehaviour.

The Brazil quiz was a cinch with Lucy on our team as she'd spent some time in Rio. So we each got a Morsbag filled with edible Brazilian themed goodies. And just look at those lovely monochromatic ants to help me through the winter.

Things are brightening up.

november roses

I've been picking stone roses and flowers for a few weeks now. It started in a church in Cambridge and since then I've been surprised at quite how many of them are around. The doorway of Wilton's Music Hall is my favourite with its swags of exotic fruits and flowers.

Those roses have seen a few changes over the years - Music Hall, Mahogany Bar, Seaman's Club, Rag Sorters, hidden away behind Cable Street. When my mum and I stopped by the other day, she talked about the dairy round the corner where she and her sisters used to peek in to see the cows being milked. She said the cows used to be allowed out for a walk out for some fresh air across the street. Hard to imagine now.


These roses are in Hackney where we went to see this...

The Round Chapel, once a home of dissension, masquerades as a music hallis and is now used for all sorts of diverse entertainment, . It was here we saw the beautiful medieval badges that the mudlarks had found, admired Stephen Gill's Hackney Flowers and heard from Iain Sinclair about his rose red empire.

And just round the corner, when I looked up on my way to the station one day last week, above the rather grand gate of the local girl's school, a modest little swag.

Just to take my mind off of the leaves on the pavement.