Snowflake pie

It snowed copiously last night.  Which meant that the children were out of the house and chucking snowballs around before breakfast.  They came back in briefly, bolted down some toast while their gloves dried on the radiator, and then disappeared back into the streets and parks of East London to make more snowballs.

Snow wasn't going to stop G from going for a long training run either.  A two hour fifteen minute run through Epping Forest was scheduled and he saw no reason why having to hop through snowdrifts or skid on the ice should stop him.  So he disappeared into the white stuff after breakfast too, wearing all kinds of peculiar technical running gear, designed to keep out the cold.

Home alone, I put on the coffee, switched on the radio and settled down in the kitchen to make a pie while I caught up on The Archers omnibus, Denise Lewis on Desert Island Discs and the latest episode of The Unbelievable Truth.  I love the Radio 4 schedules on a Sunday morning.

My pie had a warm, wintry, simple filling of carrot, potato, celery, onion and corned beef in it, bound together with some herbs and a good squirt of ketchup.  It is one of my favourite recipes from The Hairy Bikers Perfect Pies.  I decorated it with snowflakes and every last scrap of it was eaten up.  It's tiring work being out in the snow.

Busy-ness

So sad not to be eating up his Granny's mince pies, but more than ever in need of one to lift his spirits, he decided to make his own.

He made 24, but needed to make sure they were of a standard worthy of his Granny, so he subjected one to Quality Control.  Chef's privelege.

O busied herself with Hama beads.

And I wrapped presents and then ventured out in the snow to put more straw in the eglu.  Although I've had them so many years, I still can't quite believe that the chickens will be okay in these icy temperatures.  But they are absolutely fine. Beatrice is even still laying me an egg most days.

And I stopped to admire the ivy hedge, weighed down with snow, glittering in the sunshine.

Snowed in

We're ending the weekend in the wrong house.  We should be with my family in Oxford, but the snow has kept us in East London, and here we are staying.  We hope to be able to try again next week, after Christmas, but we are all bitterly disappointed.  C's eyes welled up when he heard that my mother had been baking mince pies especially for him, and O is desperately sad to be missing her cousin's 7th birthday party.

But these things happen.  We are all safe and warm and there is an undeniable romance to being snow-bound.  Particularly in London where snow is more usually grey and slushy than thick, white and crunchy.

We have been consoling ourselves in some very good ways.

• We made a batch of snow toffee.  O remembered it from reading Little House in the Big Woods, and I remembered that Jane Brocket wrote more detailed instructions in Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer.  It was a roaring success, and we learnt that enamel pie tins were the best dishes to make it in, and that it works really well with golden syrup, as well as with maple syrup.

• I soothed myself by cooking - banana bread, a roast chicken, cheese scones, two loaves of bread, and a very large pan of minestrone soup.
• I am not a fan of the Christmas tree.  The principal benefit as far as I can see, is to make the house seem gloriously spacious and airy once it is taken down and packed away (of course I have a fake one - the only thing worse than a Christmas tree cluttering up the house for days on end, is one that I have to hoover up after as well).  But we put it up on Saturday, and I just could not remain unmoved when the children unwrapped the decorations with such excitement and cries of "oh, I love this one!" and "this is the one Granny knit for us!".  I concede it does look rather pretty now it is up.

• In between episodes of cooking, I've curled up on the sofa, under my quilt, with a good book and a cup of tea.  I am working my way through the Barbara Vine novels, and loving every minute of them.  I have a couple of Penelope Lively books lined up next, which are also good for gobbling up greedily over a summer or winter holiday when there is idling to be done.
• Inspired by Calvin and Hobbes, the children built a murdered snowman and his killer - a long and fearsome snow crocodile - in the garden.  The chickens are peering at it rather warily from their run.

What IS this strange light?

I was sitting at my desk, counting my remaining teabags (8, since you ask - yes, an unnervingly small number), and I thought to myself 'the room feels strange'.  There was a very odd sensation hovvering around - a peculiar light.

And then I looked up and realised what it was.

Sunshine.

And goodness me, the ability of a bit of sunshine to uplift the spirits and make me smile is extraordinary.  I had no idea how grey I was feeling until I saw the sun.

I hope it is shining with you too this weekend, wherever you are.

Driving Home for Christmas

I thought for a while there that we wouldn't make it out of London.

But happily, the snow turned to slush overnight and the ice was cleared on the motorways just in time. The children and I made it to Oxford today where we saw:

• one Great Grandma, recently arrived in the temperate south from the deep, deep snow of North Yorkshire.


• three favourite cousins
• one of whom is now smiling and cooing and even more captivating than when I last saw him

• marzipan topped mince pies from Betty's Tearooms, which my brother declared to be the best mince pies he had ever eaten. They had come down south with Great Grandma the day before. There is nothing quite like a mince pie from Yorkshire to make me feel Christmassy.
• an extremely sprightly Granny with no sticks and a big grin on her face. Who cooked lunch for ten and made me forget she had a full hip replacement operation just six weeks ago. "Wean yourself off the sticks," her consultant told her last week. So she tossed them aside.

There was only one thing to listen to as I purred up the motorway to Oxford to see them all. Perfect.

Winter wishes

I hope that Garden Girl woke up to the snow she wished for. There is plenty to spare here.

A week in my shoes :: Day 5

No shoes today. Just some very, very cold toes as I ran outside in the snow, wearing only sandals and pyjamas to feed the hens this morning. I threw some corn in to them, ran back inside and didn't venture out again all day. Brrrrrr.

Not life as I know it

It started with the snow.

It was really quite bizarre to wake up on Sunday morning and see thick, fluffy snow everywhere. Nothing has seemed quite right this week, ever since that snowfall.

.

C and O haven't been at home this week. They have gone to stay with my parents for the first half of the school spring break. When G and I have spoken to them on the phone each evening we've heard tales about shopping trips, playing in the park with their cousins, nutella for breakfast and adventures on skateboards.

.

They're clearly having a wonderful time with their grandparents (and I just loved going to stay with my grandparents when I was small - didn't you?) but G and I feel completely bereft here in our empty, tidy, quiet house.

.

The fridge is full of un-drunk milk, the shoes are still in the shoe basket, the washing mountain is a much more modest washing mole-hill and bread goes stale before we finish a loaf.

.

Even O's drawing table is tidy. Its all wrong.

.

Last night G and I decided we'd had enough of moping and went out after work for a rare treat of dinner and cocktails at Browns, just next to my office. The apple mojitos seemed to do the trick of cheering us up.

.

And now I'm off back to Oxford to collect C and O, and I can't wait for the house to come alive again. There'll be fewer apple mojitos but more stewed apple for breakfast when they get back. And that's definitely a good thing. In so many ways!