December Favourites

 I hope to be along  with some Christmas cards from throughout the year before I go back to work and get busy again, but here are my favourite creations from throughout December. 

The theme for this one was based on the Greek legend of Pandora's box, expressing hope for next year. So folded up, it is more box-like...

  

This one is a mixed media canvas, so it's about 8" x 10".

This is the one I made for C to give me, rather than go over to the stores to try to find something. I made it in a bit of a hurry, but I was still happy with it. I love the little dog. 

A recycling theme: an old National Geographic, an even older page from a calendar, and a beer can

My individual Baked Alaska for our Christmas dessert turned out very well - I used plain vanilla icecream and added some black cherries. The only problem is that the next time C asks for it, I will no longer be able to use the excuse that I can only make it when we have guests for dinner.  

I made my second batch of mince pies today. This year's mincemeat seems particularly nice and I'm not sure why. The recipe calls for apple jelly and peach jam (I use an old recipe from The Heritage Collection of Home Tested Recipes, compiled by the Chatelaine Institute. No date inside it, but the other Chatelaine collection I received from Canada the same year was printed in 1978), but I tend to use whatever jars of jam have been sitting in the fridge that need using up. This year a jar of rather runny marmalade went in. I also wasn't sure if I'd added the brown sugar, as there was a bag sitting on the counter the next day. It tasted sweet enough, so I made the assumption that I had actually added it from my sugar jar, which would be possible. 

2 cups suet

3 cups coarsely grated cooking apples

1 cup apple jelly

2 pts grape juice or cider

1 pt peach jam

3 cups brown sugar

2 lb raisins

1 lb currants

1 tsp salt

1 tblsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg & 1/2 tsp cloves

Grated rind and juice of 2 oranges & 2 lemons

This month's header is a January evening sky from last year. 

Christmas Wishes

 No Bûche de Noël this Christmas Eve - my sister decided that it would be more prudent if only one of us spent the evening with my aunt. I missed the chocolate aroma filling the house - especially as, having forgotten to buy raspberries to serve with chocolate fondant puddings on Christmas Day, I did a re-think and we will be having little individual Baked Alaskas. 

Peaceful wishes seems to be what I have mostly put on cards this year - it's going to be a different Christmas for everybody, that's for sure. Ours is normally quiet - but there's a difference between chosen quiet and enforced. May yours be peaceful and safe.

The robin reminds me that I will have to find a new source for bird seed, as up till now I have been getting it delivered from the UK to an address in the North. I've used an Irish company  a couple of times before and will use them again in the short term, but once C returns to work in the office and is no longer at home to take deliveries, it won't be as practical. At least I got one last order in before the UK leaves the European Union, so that should see me and the birds through the worst of the winter.

Warm off the needles

 This sweater has been my pandemic project - it's a design by Joji Locatelli which I got from Ravelry. The construction is very satisfying - it's knit all in one piece. You start from the centre front and knit sideways to one side, then pick up from a provisional cast-on (bind on) and knit to the other side - a partial yoke is included in this section. Then you knit each sleeve down to the cuff, creating the back yoke in the process. The back is knit downwards, picked up from the yoke. Even the side seams aren't stitched - they're a 3-needle bind off. The only reason it took so long was my tiredness and inattention to detail a couple of times. Well, that and the fact that I used to be able to knit in work and that's a thing of the past - and hopefully the future again some time.  I'd actually bought the wool to make a sort of mediaeval panelled swing-type jacket but I couldn't get the tension right for that.

It looks better on - but by the time I arrived at my sister's last Friday after a trek across Cork city, I wasn't looking photogenic enough to ask her to take pictures. The weather forecast had been dire and I'd dressed for heavy rain which was over by the time I got there.

I'm including a few unedited photos (taken with my phone) from Friday. There was a Ferris Wheel set up on Grand Parade - to C's amazement when he saw the photo. He and his friend drove down the street at some stage, and he hadn't seen it. 

The next two are a nice initiative  called "The People's Parklet". This one is near my sister's, so I've seen it through several seasons now, as it was opened in July 2019.  The city is hoping to establish up to ten more. There's a small amount of seating, and they plant insect-friendly plants in the planter parts.  It's empty in this photo - but most times I have seen it, there have been people sitting and making good use of it. 

And a sign of the times - though given the Irish climate in the first place, plus the fact that there's always a cold wind off the river, I saw this little dining domes outside one of the restaurants on Lapps Quay. 

Frosty Borage

 We had a sharp frost overnight and a foggy, misty morning - still at midday there is no sun. I had to bring the bird feeders into the back porch for the ice to melt before I could open them and fill them. I've pulled up most of the flowers in the border at this stage, but the borage was still there and looked beautiful in its frosty attire.

November Favourites

 Since it's now the 1st of December - and where did this year go - I think it's OK to share a couple of Christmas creations as well as a few other favourites.

I thought I had a lovely picture of a few lone leaves still clinging to a cherry tree, but I took it with my phone in very strong light, and it's not worth uploading. But I did spot this "apple tree" as I walked to the shopping centre one day last week. I think someone must be hoping to attract some birds. I know the blackbirds love it when I peg apples to our lawn - well secured with two long kebab skewers so that magpies or squirrels don't take them.

I appear not to have taken any photos last December other than of the mandatory Buche de Noel, so my header comes from the Wild Lights at the zoo in 2018. This year's event, like so many other things, was cancelled. 

Park Walk

 Yesterday was quite good weather-wise, so in the morning I walked down to the local shops when they opened, and then C came on down in the car and we went to the park. It made for a different walk for him, as normally he just departs from the house on foot and walks around the immediate area these days. And it was nice for me to get away from the main road straight through it, pleasant a commute as it is. It turned cloudy as we drove there and parked, but it brightened up again and there was real warmth in the sun.

Last weekend I made a big pot of minestrone, which did three meals for the two of us and lunch for me. By the time we got to the third meal, I was on a day off and made Parker House rolls to have with it. Normally I have used the recipe from The Joy of Cooking, which requires rolling the dough out and cutting circles. This recipe, which I found on the King Arthur Flour website, was much easier, and they turned out beautifully. I'm ashamed to say I ate four of them while they were fresh from the oven. I thought the addition of potato flour was interesting - one of the recipes I use for the nearest one can get to baguettes without French flour calls for the addition of cornflour to the regular white flour. 

October Favourites

 I must have felt I accomplished more than I actually did, which I suppose is a good thing. I didn't find as many cards as I expected.

I also realise that November must be a very bad month for photos - I know that two years ago I was still struggling with my sore shoulder, but I don't appear to have any photos from last year either. My header this month is a 2017 picture of a crow in the Phoenix Park. I'm also enclosing a carpet of leaves. We've had a lot of wet and windy weather, so most of the leaves are down. This happened to be a crisp dry morning when I was walking down to the local shops, so the leaves didn't look all wet and soggy.

I was reading one of Gerald Durrell's books, about a collecting expedition in Guiana. One of the animals he talked about was a species of crab-eating raccoon. I did in fact also make a card with this little raccoon carrying a crab - but it probably wouldn't make sense to anybody except me. 

This one is meant to depict me cycling to work through the park throughout the changing seasons. I must admit that at the end of March I didn't expect to be still doing it now.

October Miscellany

 Since we were unable to leave Dublin county in September (or at least, after we were both free to take a day off), we were unable to go sloe gathering in our normal location this year, and the one place I knew to try nearer home was fruitless. So we are trying raspberry gin this year instead of sloe gin. Today was the day for straining and bottling it - we had a pavlova with some of the gin-infused berries. I don't think it's a patch on sloe gin, and I'm glad I found one last jar of that hiding away so we are not totally destitute, but I'm sure we'll enjoy drinking it. I was surprised to see how much colour the lemon slices had picked up.

C went for his more or less customary walk after work on Thursday, and came back saying he had something to show me. He had seen a little hedgehog while walking across the green area near us - he had a couple of photos on his camera and he asked me did I want to go and see if it was still there. With perfect timing, I had about twenty minutes before it was time to add the eggs on top of my layered tomato, pepper and onion dish, so we went back. He was still there - an odd time for him to be out. Apparently he lives in one of the houses across the road. As he was being very slow crossing, and it was a moderately busy time of day, someone put on some work gloves and gave him a helping hand. It was certainly an unusual time of day for him to be out, so I hope he wasn't ill. It's a few years since we last saw a live one. From the size, I think it was a young one. It's probably almost hibernation time - temperatures last night fell to near freezing.

Utility Boxes

 A couple more utility boxes - one from Cork, when we were down a few weekends ago before we were, once again, limited to travel within Dublin. No expedition to the Galway/Clare border to look for sloes this year: when the park where we have gathered them before proved fruitless, I bought some raspberries and we will try raspberry gin instead. This utility box is one of a series, but by the time I passed some more, I was fully laden and less inclined to stop.

The other one is on the main road outside the Botanic Gardens, and I've always wanted to take a picture of it. Last weekend C went back to the car, and I went out the front gate and walked back along the road.

And just a couple more photos from the Botanic Gardens, since I'm revisiting it...