Long Walk Lament

Each leg of the table in this photo has under it a terrine/bread tin containing the paté Joe had just made. Covering each tin of paté is a custom-cut and smoothed piece of wood from the shed. On top of the table is a weighty pyramid pressing down on the wood and therefore the paté. This is a method passed down from father to son which I think is rather lovely.

The paté - made from the pork we had in the freezer got from a neighbour as a whole pig (though butchered and cured etc before entry into our freezer) - is now ready and is delicious, especially the one with prunes.

It had prunes it in as has everything this Christmas - well, I exaggerate of course, but many things contain prunes. They were bought to go in the Christmas pudding, there were plenty of them so became ingredients in the mincemeat. I'm sure there was something else too, but anyway there are still some left...

I had to make two lots of mincemeat. The first, the traditional one, contained suet which I thought was gluten free until I checked the box to see if the remaining suet should go in the fridge (there to wait until it grew a fur coat before being pronounced dead enough to throw away). Fortunately a friend gave Joe and I a copy of Nigella Christmas last year which turns out to be a delightful book. I'm not familiar with Nigella except for the fact that she appears a lot on telly and is rather beautiful. Her suet-free mincemeat is quick to make and delicious. I'm hoping her Christmas pudding will be equally tasty, but we'll have to wait and see for that one.

The cake is made too, but damn it I haven't iced it yet. Must do that tomorrow. However, the marzipan is already glued in place with marmalade so the icing (a cheat's one in a packet) shouldn't take long to do.

If by any chance I have any regular readers they may have noticed I got clamped - unfairly! in Galway a couple of weeks ago. I appealed. This is what happened:

Long Walk Lament

‘The onus is on you to display’, they say

in the poe-faced standard letter reply.

‘We have your money and we’ll not give it back’.

The clampers have clamped. That’s that.

A breath of fresh air from Galway Bay

breezed through the open car door,

flipped the ticket so dutifully bought

to show a blank, not time and day.

The window sticker marked me a cheat,

‘Clamper Man that’s not fair! It’s not!

I fed the voracious ticket machine,

so release me, please, from this lock’.

‘You’ll pay eighty euros to be unfettered

or spend the night perched on the kerb,

someone probably gave you the ticket,

appeal if you like, you won’t be heard’.

I write a letter, ticket enclosed

(a scanned-in copy of course)

but ‘No!’ they say, ‘No exceptions,

our rules will be enforced’.

So parkers beware the draft through the door,

the ticket tipped up or blown over.

No decency left in clampers of wheels,

they want your cash and that’s that.

I have sent them another letter with threats of the Small Claims Court. I'm not holding my breath.

White

Winter wonderland time. The garden has transformed itself from the browns of early winter to Narnia, with frost glittering on every branch and the small scattering of snow lying all day in places the sun didn't reach.

The post and the electricity meter reader arrived here with no problem, so the roads are clear at the moment. Our difficulty arises when we have a fall of snow which half melts then refreezes. No gritting of the roads round here, so the hills in particular become impassable.

Part of me longs for the snowfall that's forecast for the east of the country, but the other half wants 'out there' to remain accessible. Perhaps we'll have to do what a friend did last winter when we were in India away from the last big freeze - he carried a bag of grit and a shovel in his car boot, so could grit himself out of a wheel-spinning standstill.

More photos of the garden - an antidote to the bad numbers being reported endlessly on the radio.

The polytunnel hasn't lost its layer of snow from the weekend, leaving it cold inside even when the sun is shining, but I'm assuming there will be an insulating effect too, so maybe it'll be a little warmer at night that it would otherwise have been. I've covered the strawberry plants in there with dry bracken, so they'll be ok.

I also covered all the pelargoniums (more popularly known as geraniums) with agricultural fleece - I lost all of them last year, in spite of them being in the glasshouse. These look as though they're off to a wedding.

Today the house has been filled with Christmas smells. I made the first lot of mincemeat and took a photo of it. They're not maggots in there, really they're not. It's vegetable suet. The mince pies with the cup of tea were delicious and not in the least maggoty.

The Christmas cake has been in the oven for the last four hours, the tin wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string to stop it burning. I'm going to go and check it now to see if it's done. This is the first check. It usually takes several as it always takes longer than I expect to cook. Hope it's not burned having said all that.

Nope. Not done at all. Another hour I'd say.

A mouse ran along the base of the cupboards in the kitchen today in full view of Joe and I. The dogs noticed nothing.