Christmas Diary

Finish up school, have several lie-ins, tidy up the house, buy the duck for Christmas dinner, feel justified breaking out the alcohol even though it isn't yet the weekend.












Drive down to Newcastle (7 hours) to see number 1 brother-in-law (by age), his two daughters, his parents and - unexpectedly - his ex-wife. Spend a very pleasant afternoon, evening and morning with them, then drive home on Christmas Eve (5 hours).
















Wake up fairly late on Christmas Day, eat a leisurely breakfast (ham on buttered toast for dearest carniverous husband and pancakes for darling daughter - just as carniverous really - and me), open presents, then take traditional Christmas Day walk on Korora Beach. Collect pandanus keys for planting later. Eat delicious roast duck and decide there's no room in our tummies for Christmas pudding...






















Spend lots of time in the garden, working off the tension as well as the calories. Relax on the verandah with books and a gin and tonic (until the gin runs out - must go shopping tomorrow), wander into the studio and wrap up Art & Lies books for posting, help darling daughter make lovely stuffed owl toy, listen to new CDs, talk to people on the phone...






















Photograph native wildlife - such as this diamond python, dug out by the silly dog near the veggie garden - and realise why the mice haven't been eating the sweetcorn. Enjoy life. Slightly dread the end of the public holidays and "real life" creeping back in...

Best Christmas Presents ever...

I had a very lucky Christmas considering how appalling our finances are! Dearest husband has been saying that I'm now the man of the house since I got the power tools and he got an IOU for a Fowlers Vacola once we have any money.





















I've wanted a Dremel for years to do, you know, all sorts of things! Most of 'em art-related, too. This one came with no fewer than 40 attachments! I'm still working out what some of them are, but I can tell you that the battery is charged and I'm poised for action. Well actually I'm poised over a keyboard but my inner power-tool-woman is poised for action.

I've also wanted the books for ages although I didn't appreciate I'd have to think hard when reading them! I've started... not sure when I'll finish.

But meanwhile I HAVE to tell you about our best ever Christmas present!















A couple of months' ago I think I mentioned that dearest husband had created a small herb & salad patch in the wasteland out the back of our new house. We have a long-term vision of "proper" beds and a paved sitting area and lots of luscious things in pots creating a sort of jungle out there... but for now besa blocks and trampelled dirt will have to do. The herb & salad patch has been very successful and we've had lettuce, rocket, dill, oregano, garlic chives, sorrel, parsley, basil and celery already with an aubergine, chilli peppers and various other things in progress.

Anyway, the other day I headed off with darling daughter to a friend's house to do some silk painting while dearest husband was called into school to sort out some IT problems. While we were out the elves visited and we found...













the original bed had been extended at either end and...













an entire extra bed had been added to the end! Roughly where the rake is in the photo the spade had been left in the soil next to a sign that said "in emergency dig here" which is a reference to the packet of biscuits I left in our car when we loaned it to Elsbeth and Linda recently with a note saying "in emergency eat me". Under the soil was a small plastic box containing ginger biscuits, tea bags and a note with Elsbeth and Linda's telephone number. I ate the biscuits (no-one else likes them - or at least, that's my excuse).





















Consequently the original bed has tripled in size! Huge thanks to Elsbeth and Linda for the idea and the hard work, and to Taja, Ruth and Darren for conspiring to get us all out of the house. Subsequently they turned up for Christmas dinner with pots of seedlings and cuttings and so I've planted up the beds with Lebanese cucumbers, various lettuces, carrots, tomatoes and coriander. We are still slightly overwhelmed by the generosity and thought that went into it - it has certainly been the best Christmas present we've had in a few years. Thank you!

Pudding

Essentially Christmas is comprised of various parts that may come in different order depending on your family traditions. For example: trees (real or artificial), presents (wrapped, unwrapped, more or less of them), socks and knickers (contained in the aforementioned presents, if you can call packages of underclothes a "present"), decorations (ranging from little bits of tinsel to extravagant electrical installations that require their own power station), etc. etc.

In my family no Christmas was complete without Christmas tree presents (I believe these were a pact between Santa and my parents: tiny things wrapped and hidden in the branches, specially designed to keep recalcitrant children under control until after dinner with the threat that "if you don't behave you won't get your Christmas tree present". Works like a charm.) and Christmas Pudding.





















Years ago I bought this cookbook and it's been my indispensible guide to making food ever since, although these days it largely functions as a holder for various scribbled recipes given to me by family and friends or gleaned from the weekend newspapers.
















The picture of the Christmas pudding is a decoy because the important thing in this photo is the collection of pieces of card showing my grandmother's original recipe and my attempts to work out different quantities for different sized pudding basins!

Mama's Christmas Pudding recipe

Ingredients


NB: there are 3 quantities given: the first and largest quantity makes several Christmas puddings i.e. 3 x 2lb (3 x 1kg) puddings plus 2 x 1ilb (2 x 500gm) puddings. The second quantity given makes 2 x 2lb (2 x 1kg) puddings or 4 x 1lb (4 x 500gm) puddings. The third quantity makes 1 x 2lb (1 x 1kg) pudding or 2 x 1lb (2 x 500gm) puddings. Personally I make the largest quantity and then freeze them: we've just eaten the last pudding from 2008!

1lb (450gm) each of sultanas, raisins, currants and sugar (or 1/2lb /225gm each or 4oz / 115gm each)
4oz (115gm) each mixed peel OR chopped apple, and ground almonds (or 2oz / 55gm each or 1oz/30gm each)
1lb 12oz (795gm) breadcrumbs (or 14oz / 400gm or 7oz / 200gm)
1lb (450gm) butter (or 1/2lb /225gm or 4oz / 115gm)
large pinch salt
5 eggs, beaten (or 3 eggs or 1 big egg + 2 small ones)
teaspoon mixed spice
brandy (optional)

silver coins or charms (optional)

Method

Mix the dried fruit, ground almonds/chopped apple, salt, sugar and breadcrumbs in a large bowl. Melt the butter in a pan and add to dried ingredients, mixing well. Add the beaten eggs and a good slosh of brandy (how much is up to you!) and mix well. Grease your pudding basin. I use various different sorts, from glass bowls with no lids to plastic ones with lids to metal ones with clip-on lids. It doesn't really matter...

At this point you need to add the silver coins or charms, if you're using them. This tradition is an old one in England: a silver coin or charm was wrapped in buttered paper and hidden in the pudding, and whoever found it in their helping was King or Queen for the day! In my family I use several coins or charms so that most helpings have one... it's just a fun thing to do, it doesn't confer any favours, and if you find it you show everyone proudly and then give it back to me to use in next year's pudding!

Fill the basin to close to the top edge, dropping in your charms or coins, wrapped in greased or buttered paper. Top the basin with two sheets of greaseproof paper, greasing the bottom one where it will come into contact with the pudding. Pleat the sheets together across the middle. Then lay a sheet of foil much larger than the basin over the top. Mould the foil around the edge of the basin and tie around the basin tightly with several rounds of string. If you've made the foil large enough you should be able to turn it back up and over the string and scrunch it into a handle that you can use to lift the pudding basin in and out of the saucepan.

Even if you intend to freeze some of the puddings now is the time to cook them first: find a saucepan into which you can put a trivet (to stop the pudding basin from touching the bottom of the pan directly - I use a cookie cutter!), then the basin and still be able to fit the saucepan lid snugly. Fill the saucepan with water from a hot kettle to about half way up the basin and put the lid on. Simmer the pudding for about 2 hours then remove from the saucepan, remove the foil and the greaseproof paper and leave to sit for a little while. Put a plate of the top of the basin and turn it over, and with luck the pudding will come out whole!

If you want to freeze the puddings, leave the foil and the greaseproof paper on the basin, leave it to get completely cold and then seal in a freezer bag and freeze. When you want to use it, take it out of the freezer the day before you want to use it, and then reheat by steaming for one hour as described above.

No Christmas pudding experience is complete without Brandy Butter and custard. I'm afraid the custard is usually shop-bought (although I buy the good stuff with eggs and milk rather than lots of E numbers!), but the Brandy Butter is easy: beat together a quantity of softened butter with some raw castor sugar and add a good slosh (or three) of brandy, depending on your taste. This gives me plenty of opportunity to taste it as I go... then chill until you're ready to serve the pudding.

On the 18th day of Christmas

My true love said to me, "Why is it that the bigger my customer the less likely it is that they will pay my invoices on time, or even at all?"





















Yes folks, we're talking about one of the biggest banks in Australia - or at least, its insurance division which is part of the same group.






















They've had dearest husband's blood, sweat and tears for 18 months, accepted the invoice with the 14-day payment period, and have casually announced that they'll pay it some time next year once their legal department has drawn up a contract that satisfies them.





















Another client is in Ireland - yes, that's right, the financial black hole of Europe at the moment. Their accounts people can't read and have sent a useless cheque out, probably to our old address, despite the fact that the (overdue) invoice has payment terms of 14 days and direct deposit written in red ink all over it. They do this every time.





















The third of our incompetent trio is in England. Another large insurance company with customers around the world. Don't worry about what these people do with your money folks, because they certainly aren't wasting it paying their suppliers... So to the Heads of their IT departments, their well-paid Board members and CEOs may we wish you a VERY Merry Christmas, apparently paid for by us.

A Christmas poem

I've been reading and re-reading the BookArtObject set text by Rosemary Dobson as I assemble boxes over Christmas because I've pasted the poem in full in the bottom of each box. It has made me think about poems and the fact I don't often read them, and I thought you might like a poem I saw in Lesley's Printed Material blog... Lesley, I hope you don't mind me quoting you!

Feet that could be clawed but are not...
Arms that might have flown but did not...
No-one said 'Let there be angels' but the birds

Whose choirs fling alleluias over the sea,
Herring gulls, black backs carolling raucously
While cormorants dry their wings on a rocky stable.

Plovers that stoop to sanctify the land
And scoop small, roundy mangers in the sand,
Swaddle a saviour each in a speckled shell.

A chaffinchy fife unreeling in the marsh
Accompanies the tune a solo thrush
Half sings, half talks in riffs of wordless words.

As hymns flare up from tiny muscled throats,
Robins and hidden wrens whose shiny notes
Tinsel the precincts of the winter sun.

What loftier organs than these pipes of beech,
Pillars resounding with the jackdaws' speech,
And poplars swayed with light like shaken bells?

Wings that could be hands, but are not...
Cries that might be pleas but cannot
Question or disinvent the stalker's gun,

Be your own hammerbeam angels of the air
Before, in a maze of space, you disappear,
Stilled by our dazzling anthrocentric mills.

Carol of the Birds by Anne Stevenson
From 'Light Unlocked' Christmas Card Poems published by Enitharmon

I suppose it means something to me partly because the birds are Northern European ones with which I'm familiary, as is the landscape. But anyway, I liked it! It's not quite the same looking out of my windows and seeing parrots and honey eaters feasting on grevilleas in the sunshine, but that's the magic of Christmas in Australia in the summertime - something totally different.

Peace and Good Will

I've sent precisely one card so far this Christmas, not because I'm a bah humbug sort of person (no, I'm not, REALLY!) but because we have to move house soon and I've not got a lot of energy...






















Inspite of my failings in the festivities department we wish you well over the holidays and hope that the end of this year and the start of a new year bring you happiness, contentment and peace. We're wishing for the same things ourselves.