Christmas Remembered

No apologies for a little look back to Christmas -
it was so very enjoyable for us and I am feeling rather reluctant to forget it all!
Much of the fun was in the preparations - including making up our own hampers for presents from
some of the preserves and brews we had been compiling. 

Karen made several Christmas Cakes (including one for us of course!).

I filtered off my Sloe Gin infusion...

Sloe Gin gets even better with keeping so some of these have been stashed away for future years!

Homemade fudge - yummy!!

Karen found that these mixing bowls made great containers for all the goodies
and of course can be kept and used afterwards!

But the main reason why it was a little different for us this time
was that it was the first spent at our Norfolk retreat!

I was great fun decorating the place - my favourite was Anna's crocheted snowflake bunting.

Soon after we bought it we discovered that the bungalow was called Meadow View
and we enjoyed our Christmas lunch looking at the wonderful view.

Christmas lunch would not be complete without Christmas pudding...

... then letting it go down in front of the fire...

...or walking it off down the Loke.

 

Dragon Harp

Firstly here 's the design traced on

Right, deep breath, and initial colours blocked in.

The finished painting...



detail of the head...

and as you can see, the dragon's tail and wings wrap around the whole soundbox - great fun!

Finally, the name of the harps' eventual recipient is incorporated in the tail.

Harvest Home!

 

 

This time of year we are usually very busy making the most of the produce
that the garden and countryside has to offer - and this year is certainly no exception.
Karen kicked off by making this amazing Spiced Blackberry and Brandy Liqueur.

The finished bottles of delicious liqueur.

 

I pinched the left-over pulp from Karen's liqueur and added it to my Blackberry and Elderberry wine.
It filled two demijohns (9 litres or 16 pints).

This is also the time of year when Karen passes the bowl of Christmas Pudding mix around
for everyone to give a stir. As you can see, Anna enjoyed it and I loved being a good stirrer too!
The aromatic smell from the bowl was fantastic!!

Finishing touches...

One Christmas Pudding for this year and one for next year.

 

Not wishing to be outdone by Karen I set too with this Sloe Gin. The recipe is simple:
1kg Sloes - or in this case I used the very similar Bullaces picked from 'our' loke in Norfolk.



200kg sugar (it may need a little more at a later date but I don't want to add too much). 

Then I filled this 3 litre Kilner jar with 2 litres Gin - you can see it instantly
starting to take on some of the wonderful colour of the Bullaces. This is now
shaken once a day for two weeks then once a week for a couple of months.
Later I may add some almond essence, a stick of cinnamon and one tsp. cloves.
Yummy!!



We then turned our attention to making Cider -
first we cleaned and sterilised all the equipment...



then cleaned and chopped up the apples ...

crushed them to a pulp...



and pressed out the juice. With the addition of cider yeast, we now have
four gallons (18 litres or 32 pints) of Cider bubbling away in the fermenting bin.
It should just about be ready for Christmas.

Karen finished off by making some bottles of chilli oil and tarragon oil.

 

Here is a hint to our next project, plus of course the Pickled Onions, Christmas Cake etc...!!

 

A Special Day Out

Many venues describe their grass as 'hallowed turf' and this is surely some of the most legendary ...
but where is it?

Well here we are at the front of the members pavilion, at Lords cricket ground - the home of cricket.
We ignored the fact that  as Surrey supporters of course we think that the Oval is the true home of cricket
(especially as it was the first ground in England to host international Test cricket in September 1880).
But Lords is the most famous ground of all and the staff there were so friendly and couldn't have been more helpful.



Thanks to a kind collaboration of ShootingStar CHASE and the MCC
we, and several other families supported by SSC, were treated to a fantastic box...

an amazing menu ...

an exciting days cricket (Middlesex v Somerset) ...

and a guided tour of the museum and ground (here is the back of the media centre).
Photography is not allowed in the museum but we saw the actual Ashes urn and a bat and boots used by W G Grace!  

We didn't go hungry!

'W G' in a lovely, leafy corner of the ground.

A London Symphony

This evening Thomas and I listened to the London Symphony by Vaughan Williams (mostly to console ourselves after watching our favourite cricket team Surrey loose in the county T20 final). If you thought he was mostly a composer of 'pastorale' music then think again!

I then found this amazing youtube version embellished by the most stunning paintings of the old city - especially apt as his music is just like a painting but with sounds. It's at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uv4lJsu0Jw - if you're not especially into this sort of music just think of it as film music and you'll get along fine (but it is far better than any film score I can think of)!

Some of my favourite bits are:

The extremely quiet and brooding opening showing a misty daybreak over the city, RVW described it as “all that mighty heart lying still”. Especially goose-bumps for me is the harp depicting Big Ben's chimes (at about 2:50). But it is a movement of great contrasts - watch out for the rude awaking at 3.20 and suddenly London is “alive with the noise and scurry of street traffic – hansom cabs and most likely the occasional motor.” but more contrast with the delicious passage for just harp and solo strings at 8:35.

Perhaps my favourite movement though is the slow movement which starts at exactly 14:00. Vaughan Williams composed it just before the first world war and is made all the more poignant in that his friend and fellow composer George Butterworth described this movement as “an idyll of grey skies and secluded byways — an aspect of London quite as familiar as any other: the feeling of the music is remote, mystical.” a few years later Butterworth died in the trenches of France in 1916. Thomas commented on another favourite 'hairs standing up on back of neck moment' a magical rising fourth in the French Horn from 16:15 (and other places eg 18:20). The French horn has a lovely rather distant sound and the rising note is made all the more effective as the bass gently drops down (a 5th) in the opposite direction, a bit like a musical sigh. I also love the occasional quoted street cries e.g. 'who will buy my sweet red roses' at 21:10.

Vaughan Williams said of the third movement (from 24:45): “If the hearer will imagine standing on the Westminster Embankment at night, the distant sounds of the Strand with its hotels on one side and the ‘New Cut’ on the other, it may serve as a mood in which to listen.”. Can you hear the sound of the buskers playing apparently a harmonica and accordion (imitated by muted horn and strings)?

The final movement is full of many colours and moods. It starts with a short and rather alarming even desperate passage but then goes into a fabulous march but then you get some of the music from first movement and to be honest I struggled to un-pick or find out much about it except that RVW refers to a passage from an H.G. Wells novel 'Tono-Bungay': “To run down the Thames is to run one’s hand over the pages in the book of England …There come first the stretches of mean homes... the dingy industrialism of the South Side and on the North Bank the polite long front of nice houses, artistic, literary, administrative people’s residences, that stretches from Cheyne Walk nearly to Westminster... We tear into the great spaces of the future and the turbines fall to talking in unfamiliar tongues. Out to the open sea we go, to windy freedom and trackless ways. Light after light goes down. England and the kingdom, Britain and the Empire, the old prides and the old devotions glide abeam, astern, sink down upon the horizon... The river passes – London passes – England passes.”

Ralph Vaughan Williams: "A London Symphony"

www.youtube.com

Vaughan Williams's great paean to the city of London, written shortly before the outbreak of the

Fame at last!

We were all very excited the other day when we were visited by none other than the BBC!
BUT to find out more you will have to visit our Pilgrim Harps blog at http://pilgrimharps.blogspot.co.uk/
Our harp blog is fairly new so this is also unashamedly a request for some visitors and followers
- as I have just added a 'join this site' tag at the side, at the moment I'm the only follower :( .

I also promised the answer to the question in my previous post. Well, according to the sign at Blickling Hall a 'Sitooterie' is a Scottish word meaning something to 'sit out in'; a place designed for relaxation, reflection and contemplation. Some definitions also associate this sitting area with a conservatory but at Blickling it is created by yews trained over a steel framework to form what they describe as a 'green summerhouse'. There is also a beautiful
mandala floor design inspired by a ceiling rose in Blickling Hall made from recycled copper also stained glass decorations and lovely benches made one of the members of staff. Well worth a visit if you are ever in the area.

Another special stay in Norfolk.

OK - this post starts with a little quiz: (and without 'Google')' does anyone know what a Sitooterie is?
We saw this sign at a recent visit to Blickling Hall in Norfolk

We visited Blickling Hall whilst staying again at our lovely Norfolk bungalow - well with this view from the front garden, the temptation to return for another stay was too irresistible to er, restist! 

One of the great attractions of this part of the world is the huge number of interesting places to visit.
This is the car park to one of a number of fully accessible board walks at the Norfolk Broads.



This is Barton Broad - it is amazing that anyone can get through here let alone Thomas in his chair - fantastic!! 

The route led all the way down to this wonderful platform with plenty of wildlife to see.
One highlight was a kingfisher zooming past right in front of us.

The Broads is a unique area famous for many things; for instance it's where Nelson learned to sail. But it's also the only place in Britain where you can see the beautiful Swallowtail butterfly. Unfortunately there were none on show this time but we did see newly hatched caterpillars on this Milk Parsley. This plant is a rare relative of Cow Parsley and is the only food-plant of Swallowtail larvae.

Another favourite part of Norfolk is this idyllic track or 'loke'. This leads from our bungalow and makes a beautiful walk across the fields and woods.



We were treated to some amazing sunsets - I took this shot of the barley growing in the field in front of the bungalow.

If anything, the moon looked even more atmospheric down the loke.



Sunrise was rather beautiful too - can't wait to be back!!