Christmas Eve

Are you ready?

Our tree was brought into the house today, but we generally wait until Christmas Eve before we decorate it.The boxes of Christmas decorations are down from the loft and greenery has been gathered from the garden so we are ready to swing into action.

 I went into Bath today for a bit of last minute shopping. The city has been lit up with decorations for weeks.

It was a dull, damp and misty day yet everyone seemed to be in good spirits.

The shop windows of VV Rouleaux looked wonderful

A reflection of sky for Skywatch Friday.

I had to go inside.

There were lots of tempting things.

A much quieter, but still pleasant display at the flower shop.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful....

We've had strong winds thrashing through the trees and bringing down branches. This limb fell from the horse chestnut onto our driveway. Luckily there was no car parked there at the time!

On an optimistic note we now have plenty of kindling!

But the best place to be is tucked up indoors.

If you're vegetarian look away now.

Friends called by with gifts this week, a brace each of pheasant and partridge. The pheasants had been hung for a week so are ready for cooking. The cock was a handsome fellow with beautiful feathers.

But the partridge are especially pretty.

I donned my feather pluckers pinny, a present from my former, much-missed neighbour, Sally.

Then it was down to business.

I've spent many years dutifully plucking, but these days I tend just to skin them as it is so quick and easy, just like taking off a feather coat. I've got a good number of recipes.

We gave this book as a present to my parents.  

My father's cold raised game pie has yet to be beaten and is spoken of with great nostalgia by our daughters! I love using the cook books that came from home.

Every Christmas I order food from Booths food shop from their sumptuous catalogue. Along with the prepared food, that gets delivered to my door, the catalogue includes several recipes.

This is the recipe that I'm going to use.

But next I'm going to have to try this cold pie recipe from Ol' Blue Eyes and see if it can measure up to my Dad's high standards!

Christmas shopping

Every first Sunday in the month the town of Frome closes the streets to traffic and holds a market. There's lots of bric-a-brac, you never know what you might find.We had intended to arrive early in order to beat the rush, but the book group had met at our house last night and we didn't get to bed until way after midnight. We arrived in town about ten o'clock and some people were already leaving. A stall holder told us that customers had been waiting while she was setting up her stall at eight in the morning!

Some stalls are just a jumble of random objects, but others, such as, 'Number Ten' are always beautifully presented.

Last time I bought some individual jelly moulds and was on the lookout for more. No luck. I liked this little cat mould but the interior was rusty.

Never mind. I kept calm and carried on.

I bought some lovely things. Can't tell you what they are.

Shush, they're going to be wrapped up for Christmas!

December Skywatch Friday

Autumn seemed to last no time at all. Now we are waking each morning to a covering of frost. There's ice on the water butts and it's crisp underfoot, the temperature rises little throughout the day. This chilly-looking moon appeared in the sky in the late afternoon.

There looked to be a promising sunset over by the lake but I felt too cold to walk over there to see. I photographed the sky through the trees from the back of the garden and then scurried back indoors into the warmth.

I'm not much of a winter person!

Sharing my winter sky with Skywatch Friday.