Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New!

All the Very Best for 2013!

Christmas Catch-Up

A quiet Christmas - had a few days off in the run up, and had actually got most of the food prep done by Christmas Day, which made for a slightly more relaxed morning.

Cooked far too much food as always - expect the leftovers will keep us going for days to come . . .





Had held back on the baking front though - have yet to make a mince pie (that's tomorrow's job, ready for the New Year visitors) and have only just iced the cake!

Hot Buttered Crumpets

Had been meaning to try to make home-made crumpets for a while now, and finally got around to giving it a go.

There was a fair bit of trial and error in terms of finding the right temperature to cook them through, without burning the bottom, but got there in the end.

And they came out looking like proper crumpets - and tasting just as good - think they were even better reheated the next day though.

Switching on the Lights

Visiting family took us across country this weekend, just in time for the switching-on of the local Christmas lights.


Must say they do a good job, they'd closed the town centre to host a small fair, and some river boats were decorated for the occasion making a real picture of the river:

All in all, a fitting start to the festive season . . .

Timber!

We had our own version of a 'superstorm' today - the winds were gusting up to 56mph at one point, and unfortunately some of our garden flora couldn't take it.

The ornamental pear tree is probably the major casualty - we now have a stump, and a lump on the other side of the garden:

 

Ah well, it'll all be fodder for the wood burner in due course, and luckily the 'big' trees made it through in more or less one piece.

Cucumber Soup

Having finally cleared the greenhouse of cucumbers had to decide what to do with them - distributed some to colleagues - but were still left with a fair number, and it isn't exactly salad weather.







In the end settled on cucumber and potato soup - which actually turned out really well.


Had pretty much decided to give up on growing cucumbers (we just weren't using them), but on the back of this, we may finally have found a tasty solution to the annual cucumber glut!

Has it Stopped Raining Yet?

Well September and October had their bright spots, but again the weather was generally unsettled, and continued wetter than we would have liked.  Indeed, it was sufficiently wet to flood the bottom of the garden again in October:

So we didn't get our Indian Summer - luckily the weather dried up for a few days to get some gardening done later in October - but otherwise we'll just have to hope for a better Summer in 2013!