Christmas Eve

I've been listening to the Nine Lessons and Carols. Now isn't that a strange thing for an atheist to do? But I have a fondness for that service, you see, when I was twelve, I was chosen to read the first lesson; the service was held in St Mary's church in Warwick, which is a pretty big church, it was the pro-cathedral for Coventry until that cathedral was re-built. I don't remember being nervous, but I had been well drilled anyway. However, there was one unplanned result, apparently it was all rather eerie, why? I was small for my age, as a matter of fact so small that no one could see me behind the large brass eagles of the lectern, so the whole reading came from a disembodied voice. Fortunately I didn't know it at the time, or it might well have put me off. Of course in those days there were no microphones so no doubt I was chosen because I had the loudest voice!
I wish they'd stick with the traditional service though, I hate all the trendy bits they put in.

Saturday

I've done two small pieces of Christmas food shopping and despaired at all the over priced rubbish in the shops. Sainsbury's in this case. Llion and I have, I think, joined the 'Bah Humbug' brigade. When I asked him what he wanted for Christmas lunch, after offering him all the usual things he decided he'd like Spicey Pork! Now I'm trying to think of a starter, but as he doesn't eat fish all the smoked salmon or prawn or what have you, aren't an option. And as he doesn't like Christmas pudding either he wants my chestnut mousse, hope I can remember how to make it, though actually I do like it too.
That reminds me of a few Christmasses ago when we were having lunch with a group of friends and I was asked to provide the dish for a Vegan. Horror of horrors; but I did come up with a sort of nut roast thing bound together with Tahini, encased in dried aubergine slices with a centre stuffing of chestnuts and cranberries. And, would you believe, he didn't turn up! We dished it up as a second stuffing and everyone, even me, enjoyed it.
I expect you are all working hard at your portfolios, which is really an excuse to boast that I've done all mine bar a little editing and the critical essay.
Hope you all survive the festive season unscathed. It's the time of the year when I am especially glad my, admittedly minimal family, live a good way away.

Monday

It's now almost mid-day, and I've spent (wasted) all morning fiddling around with photos for one of my pieces for my portfolio. It has pictures of four authors, and I suddenly thought I really should acknowledge their source in my bibliography. Of the four I could only remember where I had found two of them, so those two were easy, but - they were colour while the other three were black and white. So I decided it would be better to have them all in monotone. That was easy enough, I quickly found suitable photos and went through the copying, cutting and pasting into the article. The other three I couldn't remember which bit of the web I'd got them from so I spent another while searching for them again. I did find them all in the end, but I also found other photos I preferred so - copying, cutting and pasting again. Then up dating the Bibliography.
I don't know how you who are working manage, well I do, I would just have had to be more efficient than I am now! I think I was when I was working, and of course when it was for work, I always had a secretary to do the leg work for me, though I often did it myself, it took as long to explain what I wanted as to do it anyway.

Saturday

Isn't it cold? I have the misfortune or the inefficiency in living in the coldest room in the house; I have a kitchen with a Rayburn so that is warm, the bathroom, which is beyond the kitchen, is the warmest room in the house. The other room has a wood burning stove, and I live in the room in between which has some fairly inefficient central heating. Unfortunately, the heat from the Rayburn doesn't penetrate to the living room, they are divided by a wall that is four feet thick with a doorless doorway/corridor between. The Kitchen, Utility and bathroom used to be the shippon, and that wall the end wall of the house. The main reason it's cold is that we have slate floors which are laid directly on the earth, so they are always cold. When we had the house extended into the shippon we did consider having the house slates lifted and some insulation put under them but quite apart from the cost the slates are very big mostly 6x3 feet, and therefore very heavy. The builders said they couldn't take them up without breaking them, they are very snugly butted together. At the time I could bring myself to have that done. Now, on cold days anyway, I almost regret that decision.
I am fascinated by the way people built these houses. As I think I've told you before I'm well off the road and how they actually got huge slates like these up to the house defies belief. When we had the alterations done we used the slate dividers from the shippon to make the additional flooring, and I know the builders had considerable trouble moving them. They did put insulations under those which adds to that room being warm.
Actually, with the exception of one wall in the middle of the house all the walls are two moderately good stone outers filled up with rubble, it only stands up by the sheer weight. As I said one end wall is a good 4 feet, the other end the same and the front and back walls about 2 and a half feet. If you want to put in a new pipe you just make a hole in the plaster then wriggle the pipe through till it comes out the other side!

Friday

I have almost finished writing my cards and the majority can be posted tomorrow. Years ago, when I was young and eager, I would start buying cards in August and choose each one specifically for the recipient, this year I bought some job lots that I didn't even like much. What it is to become old and cynical!
Actually I'm not sure it is that. I come from a religious family but have been a devout atheist for many years. If I were to be truly honest I would send out cards for December 21st, the shortest day, always a day I mark off in my mind, and it was of course a celebration long before Christmas was.
Perhaps I'll do that next year, design and print cards especially, what do you think?

Thursday

I too managed to lose my way into my blog, but I've found it again so I can go on boring you.

Monday

As it's Monday and I have a few things I should do before tomorrow's class I thought I would share with you one of my favourite recipes, cooked it last night and it was super. For those who are not carnivores like me it can be cooked with any meat, Quorn (just for you Brenda if you ever read this), fish or vegetables, I suppose. Not for you just yet Lee!

SPICEY PORK

A little time to prepare but quick to cook therefore ideal if you are entertaining

If pork, well marbled, boneless shoulder chops, but chicken, quorn etc. does equally well if you want to reduce the fat content.

Ingredients

Pork, ‘chop’ size per person or any other meat

Marinade

2 tbls Soy sauce
1tbls Rice vinegar or dry sherry
1 tbls Sesame oil
1 egg
1 dsst spoon corn flour
Chopped garlic to taste
Chopped ginger to taste

Sauce

2 tbls Soy sauce
1 tbls Rice vinegar or dry sherry
1 tbls Sesame oil
Chopped garlic to taste
Chopped ginger to taste
6 tbls Tomato ketchup
1 tbls Worcester sauce
(Sweet chilli sauce optional)

Preparation

Slice meat thinly on the diagonal, long thin pieces
Stir well into Marinade, leave to stand for 20 minutes to 24 hours as convenient
Stir sauce and leave sauce to stand as well

To cook

Heat a little oil in a frying pan or wok, I use a mixture of Olive and Sesame oil
Add well stirred meat, a little at a time, till it is all well browned.
Add sauce, stir in, heat till bubbling and slightly reduced

Serve with noodles or rice.

(Great accuracy isn’t required, adjust flavours to suit taste.)

I should acknowledge the source, Yan Can Cook - American cookery programme

Try it and enjoy!

Friday

We are now coming to the part of the year I like the best - when it's not raining anyway. I like to see the true shapes of trees uncluttered by leaves, except the odd conifers, and I have a pair of Eucalyptuses. I don't mind leaves in the spring when they are new and fresh but I very rapidly tire of them and look forward to bare trees again; quite apart from the leaves blocking my water channels!

Gardening tip: Not that I'm any great shakes as a gardener, I'm good at cuttings but not at then planting them out, quite apart from my battle with rabbits who eat anything they can.

Outside your kitchen window plant a Viburnum Bodnantense Dawn. The leaves aren't anything special, but it starts flowering now; round bunches of pink tubular flowers and flowers all winter on bare branches. It also flowers off and on through the rest if the year which makes it a pain to know when to prune it. It's not that long lived, but if you prune out one in three branches every year you can keep it going. It smalls nice too.

If you have the room plant a Prunus subhirtella autumnalis rosea. Winter flowering cherry, small pale pink flowers, again on bare branches, and it will flower all winter, mine is just getting going.

Thursday

Much as I agree with Phil's Bah! Humbug attitude...











This was my last years Christmas card, would you believe the view from my front door (strange the obsessions some people have) 08.10, 30/11/06.

Wednesday

To-day I haven't opened my briefcase, well, not yet anyway. Before I'd finished my breakfast my son found he had no brakes on his car - so I had to leap into my clothes, leave my coffee, bundle the dog in the back, follow him down the track; he just about managed to stop at the bottom, then take him to our local Landrover garage, very helpful, to make arrangements for them to look at/collect it; then take him to work. At least that gave me the opportunity for me to buy a paper to read over my belated, reheated coffee. When I got home that was. I have a ford across my track, and of course it was clogged up with leaves and overflowing. Fortunately I had my trusty ditching spade in the car, so I was able to sort that out on the way home.
This afternoon I have been out again opening one of the streams by the house - there are times when I wonder why I live here!
Now I've read the e-mails from Alison and Sian, edited my analysis and am bracing myself to do the hoovering before I have to collect Llion again. I keep hoping that my neighbour will take his sheep home, it's so much easier when you don't have to open and close two gates, especially when it is pouring with rain and blowing a gale as it was last night.

Monday

So what have I been doing since last Thursday? Not a lot really. Having filleted the travel writing piece from something I wrote several years ago (and that Rob thoroughly lambasted), I went back and re-edited the piece, moved the pictures round etc. Actually I don't really mind whether anyone liked it or not - it is a recollection of a couple of months of my life in 1960, a long time ago now! I've also spent, or wasted, quite a bit of time doing searches on the net about Matatiele, Oribi Gorge etc. and very illuminating they were too.
Of course back in the '60s apartheid was in full flow. The population of Matatiele was about 250 white people with a further scattering in the surrounding farms, Cedarville, eight miles away, somewhat smaller. The Bantu, as the Africans were called, were mostly in reservations out side and between the two towns. In total some 4,000 people. Very few of them were allowed to live within the town boundaries, and they were subject to the pass laws, which included always carrying their passes with them and a night time curfew. I regularly signed passes for them to go out in the evening.
One was very aware that if there was an uprising the populations of little towns like these could have been wiped out over night. I don't know how much bad feeling there was under the surface but all my experience of the natives were friendly, they were, are, charming and cheerful people. However, the set up then was such that one never met the natives in a social situation, they were always servants, or workers of some kind or another. It is fascinating, to me anyway, to see that the Municipal Council of Matatiele is now predominantly native, with only three white people among the thirty or so counsellors. One knows that South Africa has tremendous problems still but to me it is a miracle that the hand over to African rule happened without the bloodshed that might have been expected.
Oribi Gorge too has changed tremendously, it is now a venue for extreme sports! Look at the website and you will see similar pictures to mine but now with bungee jumps and white water rafting etc. added.
It is one of the great sadnesses of my life that I didn't stay in South Africa. Why didn't I? I was brought up not to be colour prejudiced, and I knew that sooner or later I would come into conflict with the powers that be and I'm too idle or non-political to take on that kind of challenge, as well as which my father had died whilst I was there, I came home for a few weeks and then went back. Being from a family with a dearth of relatives and my brother being a missionary in West Africa, I did feel I should come back as my mother would have been without any relatives in England.
Enough of the past. Mind you the weather has been such that going out has not been that attractive an option - though I did brave the rain and wind to clear my various drainage channels, and I must do that again to-day after the very heavy rain last night. At this time of year, it is a bit like the forth bridge, as soon as I've cleared one build up of leaves I have to start over again; when I was working it was always my Sunday afternoon job, now it's whenever I realize I can't go out without my wellies on.