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O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

Mr Tree!

Poppy turned 1 last week despite all of us muttering disbelief of how the time has flown by! Our little seedling has grown up and is blossoming into quite a feisty young flower! (Dear Reader, it would be quite unfair of you to even mutter quietly that perhaps she takes after her mother. A ridiculous notion! It is all down to her auburn locks)! With birthday festivities over, Jerry finally allowed me to open the doors to Christmas. Until now, it had been incredibly hard to resist eating mince pies and glugging back the mulled wine but with all the crumbs from the second birthday cake gone (carrot – and not too much of a disaster this time, although, I did burn my hand whilst pouring over the hot honey) we could turn our attentions to the most important job of all. The Tree! In celebration of our ‘better late than never’ embracing of Christmas, we all traipsed off to our greengrocer which doubles up as a provider of Nordman firs this time of year. I will confess, dear Reader, that I adore Christmas trees. The smell, the lights, the drinking of sloe gin whilst dressing it with decorations… What could be more festive than the smell of the dear old fir tree! Evergreens are part of the fabric of Christmas as we know it now but it wasn’t always so. Made fashionable by Queen Victoria, it was good old Albert who introduced the idea from his native Germany. The Germans had been decorating trees for years before we started! Our traditional English Christmas staple, the kissing bush, was the fir’s precursor and was created with mistletoe and decorated with lit candles. Of course, the ever faithful holly and ivy also adorned the balustrades of country homes long before the humble Christmas tree ever became a la mode. With this image of country house Christmases in mind, I set to work on creating the perfect Mr Tree! A darling little tree chosen, paved the way for the age old debate of the lights, which dear Reader, you may remember that I have already mentioned: flashing coloured lights (Jerry’s particular tacky penchant) or tasteful tiny white globes twinkling in the low level light of the cottage (Margot’s choice). Needless to say I actually won the battle this year! Ha! My success all came down to Primrose, who was desperate to take over the reins of the delicate art of tree dressing. I soon realised that there could only be one master of Mr Tree! I had to physically restrain myself as Primrose set about lavishing baubles and trinkets on the tree with no particular theme in mind, other than MORE is MORE. Usually, I decorate the tree with fascisti tendencies, approving the placement of each one. Not this year…Primrose bulldozed right through my control freak decoration placement and even added her own homemade touches so that Mr Tree was complete with a homemade bell made from a sawn off litre bottle (I struggled with the tastefulness of that one). I noticed, with some glee I might add, that my tree decorating fascism had definitely not skipped a generation as I listened to Primrose berating Poppy for moving one of her carefully placed birds! I love rediscovering all the boxes with neatly packed trinkets. 1 new decoration each year ensures that we have always have a story to impart about how it was found and that particular Christmas. Primrose and I love our Christmas quest. My old favourite is a little boy with a bobbled hat (press the bobble and he pokes out his tongue)! He belongs to a Christmas in the ’80s spent in Cologne and is on loan from my Mamma. This year’s additions are a rather wonderful couple, the Sugar Plum Fairy and Soldier doll from the Nutcracker. I found them hiding in a corner of the Royal Ballet’s shop when my lovely friend, Jasper, and I were at the Opera and I simply couldn’t resist!

Our Sugar Plum fairy

The family tree dressing ceremony over, I set off to find some holly for the cottage staircase. Countryside tradition dictates that holly is hung in farmhouses and cowsheds alike to bring good luck. An age old tradition, the Romans used to give sprigs to signify lasting friendship and blessings for the year to come. You can just imagine the face of the Roman nobleman who received a prickly offering as his Secret Santa rather than an amphora of wine at the Forum’s annual Saturnalia shindig. One of the best countryside traditions I stumbled across this week, was indeed about the marriage of holly and ivy. Holly with its prickly edges and robust berries was thought to be a sign of masculinity and ivy with its ability to entwine other plants and cling to things was thought to represent femininity. Together they were brought into a farmhouse on Christmas Eve (and not before) to symbolise the coming together of kin and to ensure a happy family life for the new year. All the earlier talk of Sugar Plum fairies had given me an idea on how best to welcome in the good luck with touches of evergreen. Thumbing through some old culinary tomes, I found an excellent way to give those prickly leaves that snowy Christmas look for our Christmas cake! Ever resourceful Mrs Beeton (Book of Household Management, 1851) suggests that one ‘frosts’ the leaves: dry out any moisture, coat with ‘oiled butter’ (I used a smattering of melted butter for this one) and ‘coarse powdered sugar’ (granulated will do. Although caster did look better). Leave to dry by the fire.

Adding one last touch to our beautifully dressed fir, Primrose made me promise that I would leave a shoe under Mr Tree. She told me that Father Christmas will see my shoe, know I am a girl and leave the right presents behind. So…..never one to part with tradition, I followed her instructions to the letter and have placed a festive green velvet number from LK Bennett under the tree. Father Christmas will definitely make his judgement on what sort of girl I am with that one! That in mind, he may just leave me the keys to my very own Georgian rectory complete with holly adorned balustrades and a 12 ft Christmas tree in the Hall. Wishful thinking I know, dear Reader but I had had a large snip of sloe gin by that point and had been pouring over the glossy pages of this year’s Christmas double issue of Country Life. I may also have been just a wee bit tinky tonk too…..but don’t tell Father Christmas!

Please leave something fabulous Father Christmas! Margot has been very good this year.

A bag of Allsorts….

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My baking walk of shame……

Dear Reader, I can only applaud you for sticking with me after last week’s empty blog post calamities! Lately, I seem to have acquired a cottage full of gremlins which has reduced me to some very unladylike language. I wondered if Debretts have a section on appropriate words to use in such circumstances. Note to self: must refer to their Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners when dealing with broadband customer service call centres, children who won’t do as they are told and the bl***y old biddies and Chelsea tractor owners who keep pinching all the parking spaces in our road…. Anyway to add more insult to injury, a crockpot of kitchen disasters also fell upon the cottage last week. Poppy’s pre-birthday birthday party meant that I had to resort to my dreadful baking skills. Dear Reader, you may well be asking yourself why I did not buy the birthday cake. Yes…..that would be a good question. It is true that scones, biscuits, even the odd macaroon I can rustle up. Birthday cakes, I definitely cannot. Remarkably depressing when you try all sorts of recipes and even attempt to channel some Hummingbird Bakery magic (dearest Barbara bought me a HB book for my birthday and I haven’t managed a single recipe without a culinary cock up). Since I endeavour each year to make Primrose’s birthday cake, I thought that it just wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t provide Poppy with the same opportunity to ‘enjoy’ a lead-like taste experience and overambitious cake design! Primrose’s toadstool cake this year looked amazing (I had a lot of help from dear Mamma with that one) but tasted hideous. Luckily I didn’t serve it to any parents and the 4 year olds at the party were too full up with jelly boats and fairy cakes to eat any of it. Undeterred, I decided to climb Mount Everest once more and upscaled a HFW recipe for Poppy’s ‘cat’ bitrthday cake. That may have been my first mistake. I set about creating a chocolate cat and was not successful at all. My cat looked more like it had feline palsy and the head was too small for the body. Apparently, you need to measure cake tins rather more accurately than I did. With no option but to serve it, as my guests were due to arrive imminently, I simply poured yet more melted chocolate onto the top and then added a pink bow in a nod to ‘Hello Kitty’. I hid it at the back of the kitchen and told Jerry (on pain of death) that we would not be letting anyone consume any. A quick rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’, a candle blown out and then cake quickly squirreled away. Mission completed and no class action for food poisoning. All in a day’s work for Margot. I must be about the only person not to like cake which doesn’t help either as I have neither patience for the process or a desire to eat the fruits of my labour. Only last week, my dear friend Edie, had the cheek to suggest that I was a baking fraudster and that she was not entirely convinced of my inability to make cakes. I can (hand on heart) promise that if she had tried Poppy’s birthday ‘cat’ cake, she would have acquiesced and issued a damning judgement on my baking talent.

Oooh look at Margot’s Christmas Allsorts on the back row!

On a cheerier note, Edie did make a special trip to follow my Christmas chutney on its journey to stardom and dragged her hubby all the way to the WI’s Real Jam Festival 2012 at Denman College. Margot’s Christmas Allsorts (had no idea what else to call it) sat remarkably plain (less is more…) amongst some serious contenders. Well it was a WI comp after all. Jam and chutney entries were judged by the likes of Pam ‘The Jam’ Corbin, whose preserving prowess knows no bounds. She has even taught the dear HFW at River Cottage a few tricks or two. Primrose had been asking me for weeks if my chutney had cut the mustard and I am proud to announce, dear Reader, that it most certainly had! No awards this time but a none too shabby 15.5 out of 20. For a preserving and pickling virgin, I was thrilled with the score. I lost marks on the jam jar but was tickled pink that I had made it to the judging table at all. Margot’s Christmas Allsorts was commended as a ‘well cooked chutney’ with a ‘strong spicy flavour.’ Who knows what Margot’s Christmas Allsorts might have achieved if I hadn’t taken the instructions on labelling the entry etc so literally!

15.5 OUT OF 2O!!!!!!!

The success has left me wondering if I should ditch all further baking attempts in favour of churning out chutney from now on! I have certainly been bitten by the preserving bug and intend to try my hand at some more chutney challenges. (Edie, you have created a monster and you only have yourself to blame)! Tempted by a few of the courses they run, I might drop Jerry a hint or two. The purveyors of Tracklements condiments are safe for the time being but perhaps not for long. Wait until I get an industrial sized chutney pan! Now onwards to the next country challenge…..

Goats cheese anyone?!
(photo: Mr Edie)

Desperately trying to be crafty

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Beset by technical difficulties this week and resorting to my little phone for its internet capabilities, I had to suspend my annual Christmas web buying extravaganza. I can honestly say that I don’t know how one could live without that wonderfully whizzy invention, the internet. It is one thing that troubles me about moving to the countryside as broadband seems to be pretty patchy in deepest darkest Hampshire! Not being able to get my daily fix of browsing luxury or Country Life mag tweets had left me grumpy and in need of entertainment. With Christmas literally around the corner, I had to resort to some old-fashioned craftiness. I can honestly say dear Reader, that Margot and crafting are not a good mix. Noticing that the lovely and very crafty Barbara had already made a start with her homemade Christmas goodies (and not wanting to be outdone yet again!), I set about recreating my very own White Company Christmas.
I had the brilliant idea of making my own wrapping paper. Paint at the ready and armed with my darling crafty Primrose, I made a little robin template and some stars and we set to work. It was a messy business but I was quite enjoying it until Primrose announced that I wasn’t much cop as a painter. She then ditched me for some serious artwork of her own (see below).

As you can see, Primrose is heaps better at art. It hurt my pride to admit it but a 4 year old seriously CAN do better! I have now relegated the wrapping paper to under the dresser, only to be used in dire circumstances…. Jerry came home, took one look and said “Did you make that or did the children?” I should have lied at that point.

Moving on….I did have some success with my teacup candles. Easy peasy when you follow good old Country Living’s vast source of crafty online ‘how tos’. Provided one searches for the perfect cup (I have now befriended most of the old ladies in our local charity shops), it is remarkably straight forward and doesn’t look too homemade. Taking pity on me, Jerry treated me to a wreath making course and I managed to produce something which did look like a grown up had made it! I think he felt a tiny bit guilty about his wrapping paper comments.

Realising that I was never going to make it as a kitchen table entrepreneur and with a heavy heart, I sought solace in the village and rediscovered some wonderful local shops. Let’s hope the cottage gets its Internet back soon or I dread to think what I will have to conjure up to give the family on Christmas Day!

For now at least, the front door looks glorious and you never know, with 20 or so days until stockings are opened, I might just manage to conjure up some homemade White Company magic! Well one can hope, dear Reader…

The goose is getting fat…..

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The dreaded lurgy entered our house this week and Primrose and I have been ill, hence the radio silence. Neither one of us is known for swooning and taking to our beds, so we simply sat miserably on the sofa, grumbling at each other. Maladies dampening our thirst for countryside dalliances, we were both feeling more than a little fed up by day 3 of being stuck in the house and even Poppy’s usual joyfulness was beginning to wane. Having forced Primrose and Poppy to watch a few of Merchant and Ivory’s finests and running out of options for low energy entertainment, I decided that the time was nigh for dipping our toes in the Christmas waters, so to speak.

I adore the glowing mistletoe berries!

To quote the rhyme ‘Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat’, this is usually the time of year when I make grandiose plans for what sort of Christmas we are to have and start the great tree decoration debate with Jerry (white lights = Margot, tacky flashing coloured lights = Jerry). For some reason, this year, I just haven’t got into the right mindset for it all. Maybe it is because I keep thinking that this will be our last London Christmas?! It doesn’t help that Poppy’s 1st birthday is just before Christmas and Jerry made me promise that Christmas would not enter the house until the last piece of birthday cake had been eaten. Festive desperation will have hit me by that point! (Sneakily, I had already added the mistletoe lights to the cottage archway on the pretence that it was for Poppy’s party)….

Anyhoo, delighting in a long forgotten Christmas book (recently rediscovered and printed in 1985, The Oxford Christmas Book for Children is STILL a gem), I was reminded of the old custom of walking Christmas geese and turkeys to London. Stories of seventeenth century plump white geese wearing little boots (yes REALLY!) or the now über fashionable Norfolk Black turkeys, feet painted with tar and sand for the long walk, filled my head. These tales sat alongside visions of gloriously smocked Suffolk ‘flock’men ushering the birds on their way from country to town to arrive at Leadenhall market for the week before Christmas. Puts a whole new perspective on the ‘oven ready’ bird! Preparations in mind and realising that it was the last weekend before the beginning of Advent, what else could I be doing but my very own Christmas bake off? Stir Up Sunday was upon me. Being a pudding hater, I had already indoctrinated the girls, convincing Primrose at least, that Christmas cake was FAR superior. Poor Jerry is the only one in our little cottage who loves ‘the pud’ but dearest Mamma had already solved that dilemma, buying him a couple of mini puds to satisfy his craving! Last year, heavily pregnant and yearning for the merest whiff of alcohol, I made my first ever Christmas cake but got a bit too enthusiastic with ‘feeding’ it ginger wine. If that wasn’t bad enough, I also accidentally marzipaned the top AND bottom of the cake, much to Jerry’s horror. Turns out that even Jerry knew that I wasn’t supposed to do that….

Pausing for some tea, I decided that maybe I wouldn’t start the cake making until later and instead, would share with you, Dear Reader, a potted history of that ‘love it or hate it’ festive fruity football.

: Dear old Mrs B!

Most will know that ‘Stir Up’ Sunday takes its name from the collect read from the Book of Common Prayer to churchgoers on the last Sunday before Advent. Other references allude to 13 ingredients to represent the apostles and stirring clockwise to remember the journey of the Three Kings from east to west on their way to that little stable in Bethlehem. However, the provenance of the pud is hotly debated! The majority of pudding aficionados will agree that early versions consisted of chopped meat, suet, oatmeal and spices and were cooked in blanched sheep intestines. Sounded a bit like haggis to me. They were also served at the beginning of the meal rather than as a dessert. Some believe that it was the sixteenth century which fashioned ‘plum duff’ as we know it today as puddings were boiled in a cloth bag in the washing copper. An abundance of prunes (aka plums) is also said to have changed the original recipe but innovations in meat preservation might account for the absence of meat and the inclusion of fruit. It was Eliza Acton in 1830 (followed by Mrs Beeton) who actually penned the first recipe for the fruity cannonball, giving it the name ‘Christmas Pudding’ and the rest, as they say, is history.

Feeling a little more perky and armed with my pudding knowledge, I took a leaf out of old Mrs B’s book this year when making our Christmas cake. Well ‘Twelfth Night’ cake at any rate. Baked for the Epiphany feast on Twelfth Night (5th Jan), it formed the centrepiece of the table and traditionally contained different charms buried deep within its dense plumminess.

‘A bean for the king

A pea for the queen

A clove for the knave

A twig for the fool

A rag for the slut’

(or tarty girl as one source uttered rather more kindly)!

Fearing receiving any of the charms in a slice of the cake quite frankly, I went ahead enlisting Poppy and Primrose in the baking, leaving our cake well and truly charmless. We did stir it up (clockwise, in the spirit of the pud tradition) and I have to confess that I did make a teeny little wish. The wish? THAT my dear Reader, will be my little secret. Maybe just maybe, it might have something to do with starting our new life in the country? Bet you anything Jerry wished for his jolly green Land Rover!

Off to the oven…

Stick ’em up

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: Mrs Smug’s fire!

So with the children and I spending more time at home during the day and the evenings drawing in, our thoughts have turned to keeping warm. Primrose had already reached for her fluffy slippers and Poppy and I had resorted to a cosy blanket on the sofa, all of us moaning about how cold the cottage has got all of a sudden. Ever practical and frugal, Jerry suggested wearing another jumper but this was very quickly dismissed out of hand. Surely, Mr R Lauren’s jumpers are worn to be seen, not to be hidden under a layer of inferior wool and before the frugal among you suggest it, ‘Fagin’-style fingerless gloves will not be making their fashion debut in this little corner of suburbia any time soon either. Thankfully, the log burner (which we installed as a pseudo-country ‘feature’) is coming into its own now. Only one problem. It eats logs voraciously and I have no woodland handy to go and chop some of my own. Not unsurprisingly as this is SW London and not the country. I did breathe a huge sigh of relief over the lack of forest on the doorstep. Jerry is not to be let loose with an axe. He might not return with his limbs intact. The building of the log shed was enough of a warning sign. Jerry’s DIY efforts, although valiant, were somewhat lacking and we now have, what can only be described as, a down and out shack to rival any under Waterloo Bridge at the bottom of the garden. Affectionately known as the ‘Jesus’ shed, Primrose and I did joke last year, as Christmas Eve was fast approaching, that if I did not make it to the hospital in time, I could always give birth to Poppy in our very own Bethlehem style stable. I am sure that you will be grateful to hear, dear Reader, that the shed remained fit for purpose (in its loosest terms) and instead, Poppy’s first view of the world was of HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

Whilst I deliberated about log suppliers, I turned to a new book I had bought in the hope of learning a new ‘country’ skill to impress Primrose and Poppy. Ever since our last woodland walk when I ended up carrying Primrose’s bike for at least a mile, Jerry and I have been trying to come up with ways to keep Primrose occupied on long walks. This seemed perfect: The Stick Book by Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks

This book is THE ‘must-have’ if you have outdoorsy children or if you think that they need a bit of encouragement to become outdoorsy! Primrose is, without doubt, in the latter camp! It has everything from den building, making camp fires and impromptu fishing rods to creating woodland fairy houses, pooh sticks and the ultimate stick creating, a bow and arrow. I think that I was more excited by the prospect of the bow and arrow than Primrose was! Knowing that it was definitely beyond my stick-making abilities, I set to work on creating another stick masterpiece. Collecting the right sticks was the first hurdle. Speaking as someone who has no idea of the difference between hazel and hawthorn or can tell my ash from my willow, this was not easy. I did manage to gather some sticks though with Primrose’s help. (Primrose’s main incentive was my outlandish claim that I could make her a witch’s broom for a party she was going to). Not sure if they were the right ones after an hour, I wasn’t going to spend another minute freezing my bottom off in the park, whilst we looked for the perfect stick to complete our challenge. Returning home, I attempted the witch’s broom and failed miserably. Apparently, I had left the sticks too long and they had dried out, making them useless for bending into the right shape. Harrumphing, I went to make a cup of tea. Meanwhile, Poppy managed to put most of the sticks in her mouth and then crawled with them into the sitting room, almost gauging out one of the cat’s eyes…… Witch’s broomstick maker was not going to be added to my list of skills this week. Witch with one-eyed black cat – mmmm – might just be able to recreate that, with Poppy’s help.

At the very last hour before the party, I managed to convince Primrose to go as Bo Peep and I rustled up a shepherdess’ crook out of some bamboo sticks in the garden! Clearly a little improvisation (and some stick knowledge) can go a long way. That and a lot of brown tape! Turning back to The Stick Book, I reckon that with a bit more practice and some further acquaintance with which sticks are best, I might just work out how to make that bow and arrow. No chance Primrose will have that one if I do manage to make it!

: By hook or by crook….sorry couldn’t help myself!

Party prop crisis averted, I turned my attention back to the business of keeping warm. Trusty Country Life produced a top tips list this week on preparing one’s house for winter. My favourites being: checking the gutters for trapped tennis balls (if only the cottage had a tennis court…) and making sure that one has the game larder disinfected ready for restocking. Deliciously brilliant advice I thought! Logs ordered on the interweb and finally delivered, the weather warmed up…..Typical. Come on winter! Hit us with some very cold days so that I can remain Mrs Smug of Suburbia, boast kiln-dried logs rather than moan about gas price fixing and retreat to my cosy, warm cottage to drink mulled wine! Now, where to find that game larder?………..

: Someone has been reading The Stick Book! Amazing what the humble stick can be turned into!

Margot Tries the Good Life

A chronicle of the transformation from self-confessed townie to country bumpkin

Author Archives: admin

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

A bag of Allsorts….

Desperately trying to be crafty

The goose is getting fat…..

Stick ’em up