24th December - Advent Photo and Yesterday

First of all Must remember to say hello and welcome to follower number 650 - that's a good round number to finish the year with I reckon.

Oh Goody, we in Suffolk and Norfolk have now jumped from Tier 2 to Tier 4 from Boxing Day, which is lock-down in all but name and something I predicted the other day and I'm not at all surprised after hearing how many Covid cases are being treated in Ipswich hospital. Plus another new variant has got here from South Africa...as well as that which seems to have started in Kent. It's not ending anytime soon is it?

Did it rain where you were yesterday? It certainly did here..........most of the day...... heavy rain - really nasty. The water in the ditch across the lane is as high as I've ever seen it, and a few weeks ago I reassured the people buying this house that it never floods over into the lane, now I'm not so sure!

 By the time I got to the Greengrocers just after 9 yesterday all the sprout stalks had sold - everybody must have had the same idea, so I got some loose - they looked fresh so that's OK. And to make a change I got a bag of their mixed colour carrots -that will puzzle BiL tomorrow - bet he's never seen a purple carrot!

I'm not a huge fan of cookery programmes but I watched Jamie Oliver  doing some Christmassy stuff  and liked the look of his roasted squash 'sausage rolls'. Unfortunately I didn't write down what ingredients he used, wonder if it's online anywhere - I shall do a search. Later there was a Wartime Christmas programme, first of three in a new series and at the opposite end of the scale "Christmas at Chatsworth" was very decorative.

Today I'm going to get the pigs in blankets prepped - my favourite bit of Christmas dinner, yummy with a honey and mustard glaze, the bread-sauce made - that's youngest daughter's favourite bit of dinner,  and get as many other jobs done before my visitors tomorrow. Strictly legal visitors I hasten to add- an odd thing to say but there you go. 

Back to  the books................

And the last of  this years Photos in Advent, a couple of old favourites. Two of my Miss Read (Dora Saint) collection. Both these books are made up of either her other very slim titles (No Holly for Miss Quinn and The White Robin) or extracts from her Fairacre or Thrush Green books.

A friend  used to read these every year at Christmas to get her in the right mood, perhaps she still does. I've not read them for ages and only thought of them when I was searching the shelves for something for this last day of advent post.

 I love these gentle stories of the 1950's and 60's villages and villagers. Her 2 room primary school is just the same as the 2 room school I went to but we didn't have such a wonderful head teacher as Miss Read. 

I started reading them when I first worked in the library and she carried on writing one a year until the 1990s. Over many years I gradually found all of them in charity shops to read again, although they've rarely been out of print since and are probably still around to buy now.

 

Back  Briefly  Tomorrow

Sue

 

23rd December - Advent Photo

Another small book similar to the one I wrote about on Sunday and compiled by the same person a couple of years later in 1986. It's also a book that I've had for ages. 

 

 The editor had already used all the best bits of Christmas writing in the first book but there are a couple of enjoyable pieces in this one.

First an Ogden Nash poem -                  A Word About Winter

Now the frost is on the pane,

Rugs upon the floor again, 

Now the screens are in the cellar,

Now the student cons the speller, 

Lengthy summer noon is gone,

Twilight treads the heels of dawn

Round eyed sun is now a squinter,

Tiptoe breeze a panting sprinter,

Every cloud a blizzard hinter,

Squirrel on the snow a printer,

Rain spot sprouteth icy sprinter,

Willy-nilly this is winter

Summer swollen doorjambs settle,

Ponds and puddles turn to metal,

Skater whoops in frisky fettle,

Golf-club stingeth like a nettle,

radiator sings like kettle

Hearth is Popocatepetl.

Runneth nose and chappeth lip,

Draft evadeth winter strip,

Doctor wrestleth with grippe,

In never ending rivalship.

Rosebush droops in garden shoddy,

Blood is cold and thin in body,

Weary postman dreams of toddy.

Head before the hearth grows noddy.

 

On the hearth the embers gleam,

Glowing like a maidens dream,

Now the apple and the oak

Paint the sky with chimney smoke,

Husband now, without disgrace,

Dumps ash-trays in the fireplace. 

When I looked online on poetry websites to copy the poem onto the blog I couldn't find it anywhere at all which is a bit odd so had to type it all out word by word.........the things I do to fill a blog post!!

Below is a story which I hope is true, and also hope it's big enough for you to read. It's said to come from The Sunday Express in December 1984. The Queen loves her horses so perhaps she would ask a choir to sing to them.

Yesterday I made some cheese straws and today I shall pop to Debenham for the fruit and veg shop where I know they will have a stalk of Brussels sprouts, carrots and grapes. That's my shopping done.

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

 

 

22nd December -Advent Photos 2020 + Holly and Stars

 Yesterday was the Winter Solstice and now  daylight hours will (very) slowly increase and the days will get colder - in theory,  

As the days lengthen, so the cold strengthens

 but with global climate change who knows.

 I had to move the car out of the garage and out of the way as Youngest Daughter's ex partner was hopefully coming with a friends van to get the fridge and bed frame (he didn't appear for the third day in a row) so while I was in the car I decided to go and get the Holly from a mile away. No chance of biking as it was pouring with rain. Then there was Ivy, Rosemary and Bay from home and now winter is on the table.

 Today's Advent  book is a children's book, one that has been around a while, but not long enough to have been found secondhand for my children. It was published in 1991.

 

It's full of short  stories and well known excerpts from longer books plus carols and poems.

Once again it's the  illustrations that I love

I'm a sucker for traditional winter scenes

 I discovered that Sally Holmes, the illustrator of this book had also illustrated a book called "The English Cottage Year", available for 99p from Abebooks. It sounded interesting and will be on it's way to me in the new year.

Was it fine enough where you were to see Jupiter and Saturn in alignment yesterday evening? It was too cloudy and wet here although I'd seen them getting closer together on the last few clear nights from my bedroom at bedtime. This is the first time they've appeared so close as to look like just one star in 800 years (or 300 years depending on which news I read/heard). Some folk think this may have been the bright star seen in Bethlehem all those years ago. 

Maybe it was. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

21st December - Advent Photo + Thinking About Isolation

Yesterday I delivered the Christmas hamper to my Sister in Law  H. (Colin's sister) and her husband S.. They have been seriously isolating and  shielding since March. S has a condition which requires him to take tablets to suppress his immune system and luckily H has been able to work from home all this time. Lucky also that they live up a long lane in a old farmhouse with space and land all around to walk.

I was able to have coffee with them outside in the summer but since the colder weather haven't seen them. I knocked on the door and put the hamper on the doorstep when the door was opened, they stood well back with S at least 15 feet  away. I felt intrusive and it's difficult to have a conversation when they are standing so far away and living in a different world. What they are doing is understandable but I wonder what's it like to be so worried?

Although there are many things I used to enjoy doing that haven't happened this year I've not been scared of going out, shopping, swimming, library van etc.Trying to keep things as normal as possible, while being careful and hopefully getting back to real normal whenever that's possible. Will people who've been shut away ever feel brave/safe enough to return to the world? H & S aren't old - they are both younger than me by several years so hopefully with the roll out of vaccines they will be able to return to all the things they liked doing.

 

As for the new tiers......it was pretty obvious after the November lockdown that the 5 days of Christmas "permission to go crazy" wouldn't actually happen so why are people so surprised? and I'm now sure that there will be a harder lock-down through January - with brexit looming and still no deal there will be lots of fresh food missing from the supermarket shelves anyway, so it won't matter if we aren't allowed out as there'll be nothing to buy  !!

 

Deep rooted Suffolk common sense and English stoicism  says that I don't react to things beyond my control but just get on with life as it is, whatever.

Anyway back to Christmas books in Advent......................

 This is the most recent acquisition to my Christmas books, another small book with not many pages. I found it in the Home-Start charity shop in Eye when they re-opened after the November lock-down. Books by Susan Branch, a well known author and illustrator in the US are rarely seen this side of the Atlantic and they are a bit twee.

This book is printed using a very small handwriting type of font, makes it difficult to read but her illustrations are pretty.

 

Today for the Winter Solstice I shall be going out for some Holly and Ivy and with Rosemary and Bay from the garden I'll decorate the house to symbolize the turn of the Wheel of the Year.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

20th December - Advent Photo

It was lovely weather here early afternoon yesterday, sunshine but breezy and not cold so I threw doors and windows open and let the wind blow through the house. It felt good. And then at 3pm it started to rain Yet Again. Ho Hum..................... too much rain in my opinion

 

Today's Christmas book is a very small book of just 50 pages that's been around on my shelves for years, it was published in 1984 and comprises of carols, poems and Christmas writings from years past.

 

This book was where I first read the John Betjeman poem 'Christmas'

Christmas by John Betjeman

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine

I've a version of this set to music on a CD called Words/Music which is poetry of Betjemans set to music by Mike Read and sung by various artists. I tried to find a youtube version but couldn't. Just a 30 second sample HERE   (And this link may not work anyway  so the site is ......https://www.shazam.com/track/615949/christmas )

 

 Also in this little book is a letter from General Robert E Lee writing to his daughter in the middle the US Civil war in 1861

 

I wonder what he sent that was 'vile dross'?

Another poem in the book

"Fetching of Grans" something that always used to happen when I was little but no "sherries or gins" or "corks making pops"!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

19th December Advent Photo + Saturday Round-up

 Another Ladybird book that I've kept for years. First Published in 1988 and probably bought for my children or for ideas for the Cub Scouts, it was good for answering Christmas Quiz questions before we had the internet.

 It's been a busy week here up the end of the lane, the final thing being the chimney sweep who came yesterday morning. Then I rushed off shopping to get a few bits before a lazy-ish week at home. On Christmas Eve I'll just pop to the fruit and veg shop in Debenham for a stalk of sprouts as there aren't enough left on mine here and the carrots that I was sure I'd bought in Asda but got home and  hadn't. How did I do that?

A few weeks ago I spotted some mistletoe within reach on a tree on a back road about 3 miles away so the other day went for a closer look but I reckon it had been sprayed with something as there were no berries and the leaves were turning yellow. That's the second time my attempt at local mistletoe has failed after the bunch on a tree close to home was sawn off earlier this year. Looks like my winter solstice greenery hunt will be just Holly and Ivy

I've enjoyed looking after the two youngest grandchildren for two afternoons while DiL had appointments. Youngest grandson is missing out on so much social contact by being an almost Covid baby (born beginning of Feb) there is just nothing happening that DiL can take him too, it's made him so clingy. When youngest granddaughter was little they were able to go to parent and baby group, baby music group and all sorts of other things. Poor little fella only gets to see his Mum, Dad, sister and me. Thank goodness Youngest Granddaughter is a happy little girl.

At last........... 12 days after the first email saying the Hermes courier was about to deliver my order - the parcel arrived yesterday. When I heard rumours that the arcadia group were about to go belly up I quickly ordered some black leggings from Evans as that's where I've been getting them from for years - nice soft black and stretchy. So it was a tad annoying to find on the local face-book page  that the replacement  Hermes driver had given up in despair and I'd given up hope of them arriving. They've obviously found a new driver with a bit more common sense.

And that was my busy week - Oh -  I also dug up and potted a rhubarb root to take with me to the bungalow and finished tidying the greenhouse stuff too. 

This week I am grateful for

• Some fine days to get more cleared and sorted in greenhouse/garage/garden ready for moving
• A lovely quiet swim
• Time spent with 2 precious grandchildren
• Lovely load of library books

 

Back Tomorrow 

Sue

18th December - Advent Photo + December Library Book Photo

 A book from my Home Front collection, that I've had for years. Christmas at War by Caroline Taggart  which I wrote about last Saturday  is reminiscences written recently, whereas A Wartime Christmas by Maria and Andrew Hubert tends to be made up of pieces from newspapers etc written at the time. It's quite good for dipping in and out of.

 

 This is the amazon description.............

"For those who lived through wartime Christmases the celebrations during those years had an especially poignant flavour. This unique anthology recreates those times of heartache and brief moments of pleasurable escape and happiness. Share with wartime veterans and their families memories of Christmas under fire; read about the gift of a pig for POWs' dinner from the Japanese emperor and how Glenn Miller's disappearance almost ruined the AEF Christmas show; enjoy ENSA veterans' anecdotes of Christmas concerts in the most awkward situations. From Christmas on the Russian Front, on board ship in heaving seas and a soldier's experiences in Egypt, 'It ain't arf hot' pantomimes and the Archbishop of York's Christmas message in 1940, to an account of life in the Warsaw ghetto, here is a collection of what made Christmas special during the years of the Second World War. Illustrated throughout, it will appeal not only to those who have experienced wartime Christmas for themselves, but to all of those with an historical interest in the war."

And two long months after his last visit,  Andrew the mobile library man was round with a lovely collection of 16 books that I'd requested.

What a treat..........

 5 British Library Crime Classics,  new books by Anne Perry, Ann Cleeves and Lissa Evans. 3 other fiction re-prints of old books, 4 Non-Fiction and Blitz Detective which I know nothing about. 

If (and it's a probably a sure thing I reckon) - we are locked down again through January then I'll have plenty of reading.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

17th December - Advent Photo

This is one of those books that gives you dozens of ideas on how to make wonderful Christmassy things. A book that's been on my shelves for years waiting for me to use the ideas,  it was published in 1996 and I see my copy was from a charity shop for 80p.

 As it's a Dorling Kingsley it is mainly photographs. Ideas and instructions to trim your tree, your table, your fireplace, your front door and the presents - lovely photos but it would need many hours and more enthusiasm than I've ever had for making things!

 

 The salt-dough camels above caught my eye - pretty - and with the salt dough crowns in the bottom right corner of the page are used to decorate a "We Three Kings" themed tree.

It's been so handy doing this book advent photo thing - made me look at the books properly - bet you've guessed this book has gone in the charity shop bag!

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

16th December Advent Photo

 Something completely different today and it didn't get into the 1st December photo of all my Christmas books because it was tucked away at the end of a row on the bookcase and got pushed behind other books.

This has been sitting around waiting to be read for several years. Katie Fforde's books are a bit light and fluffy, not my usual reading but I don't mind one now and again and  they make a change from crime!

I started to read it but honestly the (VERY) short stories were such rubbish that I gave up after a couple and popped it in the bag for the next charity shop trip.

Good news from the estate agent is that the people who own the bungalow I'm buying have found a property to buy in Kent with no chain. So hopefully nothing to stop everything being straightforward. (Famous last words!). 

Thanks again for comments and sorry for not replying - busy week this week with babysitting the 'bubble' grandchildren twice, chimney sweep, swimming, shopping, library van, baking mince pies (and my mincemeat with chopped apricots instead of raisins is fine) and now I need to start list making for moving.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

15th December - Advent photo

 Compared to most  of my Christmas books this is a newer addition to my shelves.

I borrowed this from the library last year or the year before and loved all the illustrations so much that I bought a cheap copy. But when my paperback copy arrived it was completely different to the hardback library copy.

In the hardback the illustrations were full page and in colour but in my paperback they are mainly black and white and much smaller, as is the print size ............disappointing  .

 

The description from Amazon ..................

" Medieval Christmas roaring fires, Yule logs, boar s head on a platter and carols. So many of our best-loved traditions have their origins in the medieval period that it would be impossible to imagine the season without holly and ivy, carol singers calling from door to door and a general sense of celebration in the face of the harshest season. Sophie Jackson investigates the roots of the Christmas celebration in this beautifully illustrated book. She offers guidance for re-creating elements of the medieval Christmas at home, tips on decorations, instructions for playing medieval games and recipes for seasonal dishes. Fascinating facts about some of our most cherished customs, such as the nativity crib, are unearthed, as are some that are less well known wassailing the apple trees, the ritual beating of children on 28 December and the appointment of a Lord of Misrule and a boy bishop. Lively and entertaining, this book illuminates the medieval Christmas, showing how the traditions of the Middle Ages continue to delight us today."

 

A couple of weeks ago I watched the Christmas edition of The Tudor Monastery Farm where they baked a cake with a dried pea inside - the person finding it became The Lord of Misrule and  Wassailing apple trees I knew about and have been doing it for years, Boy Bishops I'd heard of and they probably still do that in the Very High Church in the village I'm moving to but the ritual beating of children on the 28th??!! .............it's a good thing that tradition has been lost in time!

 

A few of the illustrations that are in colour in my book. 

The first is from Les tres riches heures du Duc de Berry by the Limbourg brothers. I wanted to find out more and discovered this.........

 

 " Très Riches Heures is probably the most important illuminated manuscript of the 15th century, "le roi des manuscrits enluminés" ("the king of illuminated manuscripts"). It is a very richly decorated Book of Hours containing over 200 folios, of which about half are full page illustrations. 

It was painted sometime between 1412 and 1416 by the Limbourg brothers  for their patron Jean Duc De Berry and finished by Jean Colombe between 1485-1489. "

 

The text beside the picture says "In the depths of winter, greenery brought hope of renewed life, although this farm has yet to be decorated."

 

 

I also found that the picture above illustrates February so not a Christmas picture at all - hence no greenery!

 

Below two more medieval illuminations from the book

 

Thanks to everyone for comments, apologies for not replying and it's good to hear the Christmas crime books have arrived at their destinations in plenty of time for Christmas reading - Good Old Royal Mail.

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

14th December - Advent Photo

 Today's Christmas book is another that's been on my shelves for as long as I can remember.

 A Christmas Scrapbook compiled by Elizabeth Walter and published in 1979

Each page has an illustration of a Victorian Christmas card and some history of all the traditions  that we know today.

I doubt you'd find a New Years card in 2020 featuring a dead turkey!

 Christmas returning after being banned in 1652  featuring on a Victorian card 200 years later

Back Tomorrow

Sue

13th December - Advent Photo + Mince Pies 2020

I like a mince pie as much as the next person - but not dozens and not one everyday which is supposedly the tradition. So thought process when contemplating mince pies 2020................

I ought to make a bit of an effort - can't have Christmas without a mince pie
I'll just buy half a dozen from somewhere............ but they are often too sweet
I'll buy a jar of mincemeat and make some...........but the best is expensive and the cheapest is nasty.
I'll make some mincemeat like I usually do from the Delia Smith Christmas book.................but I haven't got all the ingredients and don't want to buy anything
I'll make mincemeat .....using what ever's in the cupboard plus a lemon!

 So I did.

This is the Delia Smith Recipe, which I've made lots of times - hence the mucky marks on the page.

Decided a quarter of the recipe would be enough this year and swapped an eating apple for the cooking apple, dried read-to-eat apricots chopped very small replaced the raisins, light brown sugar replaced the dark brown and I completely missed out the chopped peel, the nuts and the orange juice/zest and  always use vegetarian suet anyway.  It looks like mincemeat and smells like mincemeat, so I'll let you know what it tastes like when the mince pies are made and tested.

 .

Today's advent book has been around for a long time. The Ladybird Book of Well-Loved Carols was published in 1986. It has the names of my two eldest written inside in their writing. All the favourite old carols that we know so well are included.

 

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

 

 

12th December - Advent Photo and Another Week Gone

Another week gone and it feels like I achieved quite a lot -which makes a change.

 It was so good to have sunshine last weekend. Son came over to help me fetch down some stuff from the garage loft. I had no idea what was up there but it turned out to be bits left there after one of Youngest Daughters house moves just after we moved here. Some things were mouse-eaten or pooped on by birds and other bits no longer needed. But now at least they are all down to floor level - filling up the space where I like to put the car in icy weather! Youngest daughter and her partner have split up so he will come and fetch the things that will be useful in his new flat. 

After a couple of sunny days we then had fog and frost........days when the temperature hardly got above freezing and of course I couldn't get the car in the garage......typical.

On Monday I suddenly realised how much I needed a hair cut and gave them a ring and luckily they'd had a cancellation for that  afternoon otherwise they were fully booked until the 22nd. So drastic trim and thinning done and all will be OK for weeks.

 On Tuesday I took the big bundle of forms and deeds and other bits of paperwork to the solicitor in Bury St Edmunds............. a good opportunity for looking around all the charity shops. Bury was buzzingly busy and it wasn't even market day. Apart from masks and queues it was like any December day which I was pleased to see. Most shops seemed to still be open although I didn't bother to go up to the new shopping centre where Debenhams will be closing down. Nothing of any interest in the charity shops even though there are so many around the town.

Wednesday I swam, baked a cake and sorted out some junk so that  on Thursday I was able to take a load to the recycling centre AKA the tip. I booked into their first slot at 9am and was in and out quite quickly.  In town I picked up the Christmas double issue of the Radio Times - an annual traditional treat that I'll  enjoy browsing through. (I've already spotted a one-off Upstart Crow - Good) and had that exciting Persephone book find.

And Friday I waited in for a delivery, wrapped the grandchildren presents and finished off the family Christmas cards.

That's what I call a good, happy, successful week.

  Today's Christmas Advent Photo is this book by Caroline Taggart 'Christmas at War'. I borrowed this from the library last March but didn't read it because I straightaway decided to buy a copy. I think it was the first one I got with the £50 Shop4all voucher when I changed my house insurance provider.

Now I've read it and enjoyed it immensely. After reading how people managed to celebrate Christmas during the war years at home and abroad we really have nothing to moan about at Christmas 2020.

This is a book to keep and add to my Home Front collection to read again. 

Forgot to do a Grateful list last week so in the last two weeks I've been grateful for

• Sorting out and clearing out things to make less work later
• Good books and being able to share them around the country
  
• Getting Christmas gifts all finished
  

Next week I'm hoping to hear that the people who own the bungalow that I've had an offer accepted on have found somewhere to move to. They are long distance house hunting between here and Kent so it's not so easy. The bungalow is just in the next village over the A140 so I'm not moving far.

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

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11th December -Advent Photo + Charity Shop Surprise

Today's Christmas book is  'Christmas at High Rising' by Angela Thirkell, a collection of short stories published in 2013.

You either like Angela Thirkell's tales of the people in her fictional Barsetshire or you don't. She wrote 29 books between 1933 and 1961 and I've been gradually collecting and reading them over the last few years. Virago have re-printed several - unfortunately they've not yet done the ones I haven't got, so 5 are still  stuck on my wish list ranging in price fro £20 to £30. I keep hoping Virago will re-do all of them given time.

From Amazon website...........
"Originally published in the 1930s and 1940s and never before collected, these stories by the incomparable Angela Thirkell relate merry scenes of a trip to the pantomime, escapades on ice, a Christmas Day gone awry, and an electrifying afternoon for Laura Morland and friends at Low Rising, not to mention the chatter of the arty set at a London private view. Charming, irreverent and full of mischievous humour, they offer the utmost entertainment in any season of the year."

It's a while since I read it so I've brought it down for reading quickly before the mobile library brings me 15 books next week.... 15! I won't need to worry about what to do if we are snowed in through January!

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And here's the charity shop surprise. In the Oxfam shop in Stowmarket I was amazed to see these

half a shelf of Persephone Books - what a treat, had to put my glasses on to see which were there and they steamed up in excitement ( or it might have been the mask!).

I wasn't too greedy, didn't snap up the lot but at £1 each (£1 is VERY cheap for Oxfam shops, the person pricing couldn't have checked on-line) I could have bought them all and made a profit re-selling. But I did buy £6 worth to add to my collection. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

 

10th December - Advent Photo + Parcel Posting

Today's Advent Book Photo................

 This book kept popping up on the recommended pages on amazon last year and  I bought it without really knowing what it was (Stupid Woman!). If I'd known more about it and looked at her website I probably wouldn't have bothered. 

 

 Gillian Monks is a Quaker, Theosophist (had to look that up....... THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good—that is perfection; and the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had no cat.)

...........and I was none the wiser after reading that! and she is also a practising Druid  and lives in North Wales. The book is a pot-pourri of writing about aspects of Christmas, with recipes, history and little snippets from her own Mother's diary.

 I've dipped in and out of this book -  published in 2018, and there are several interesting pieces but a lot I knew or already had information about in other books. It will be sold on after Christmas.

 

 

Because there isn't a Post Office in my village I tend to take parcels and things that need weighing whenever I'm out doing something else, I picked the wrong time last Saturday and had to wait for ages in a queue in the Co-op in Debenham  - that day I got all the cards off except those with letters. Then yesterday, on my way back from swimming I went to the PO in Eye and walked straight in and no queue - very unusual - so all the Christmas crime books and all the rest of my Christmas cards with letters are now winging their way around the country. We may moan about them but I think Post Offices and postmen/ladies do a brilliant job. When you think that it's cost me the same to send a parcel all the way to Tiree in the Inner Hebrides as it does to send a parcel to Essex that's pretty good. I wish PO's could have stayed open in more villages but there are a few left to use. 

And compared to Hermes Parcel delivery service they are 100% better. I'm hoping that something I ordered will get here eventually but emails keep telling me there's been a delay and haven't heard a thing since Monday. On the village face book page I see I'm not the only person and apparently a new Hermes driver gave up after just two days due to the difficulty in finding some properties - in a place where there are no road name signs and houses are tucked away up lanes..... I don't envy them. Yet other companies like DPD who collect book parcels for ziffit never have any problem.

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

9th December - Advent photos and Making An Effort

 The Christmas book for today is A Suffolk Christmas

 

 It's been on my shelves for several years and I often spot it in Suffolk charity shops at Christmas time.

First published in 1991 it is made up of short pieces taken from The East Anglian Daily Times, The Eastern Daily Press and from the books of authors who lived in or wrote about  Suffolk.

 

A short extract from the EADT explains how rarely we get a white Christmas and was published in 1962 - ironically the year before the longest and coldest winter for many years.

 

One bit was by an author of 4 crime novels that I'd read many many years ago.Sheila Radley wrote books set in Suffolk during the 1980s, with a detective called Inspector Quantrill and in the Suffolk Christmas book the introduction to one of her books "Talent for Destruction" describes the joy of snow to children in winters of the 1960's. I looked her up on Fantastic Fiction and found she'd written 9 books in the series and the library still have one that I've not read.

Not all the pieces are about cheerful happy Christmases. George Fulcher who lived in Sudbury in the first half of the the 1800's wrote about the injustice of the new Poor Laws which sent people to Workhouses and separated married couples and their children. 

 

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 I've finally got round to doing a bit of Christmassy decoration - The Tree. I hauled it out from under the stairs, fitted all the branches onto the trunk

and untangled the lights. I'm not a minimalist when it comes to colour on the tree!

There were nearly as many bits to sweep up as there would have been with a real tree.....but without the prickles.
 

Thank you to the winners of the draw for the Christmas crime books for getting addresses to me quickly so I can get them in the post and away. Two books went to Devon, one to  Yorkshire and one to Merseyside and I'm pleased to have 4 less to pack when I move!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

 

8th December- Advent Photo + Who Got Picked Out

 A very small book from Candlestick Press. They are marketed as books "instead of a card" (4.95 each) and include an envelope and bookmark for a message if you buy them direct. I spotted this in the window of a charity shop in Diss when I was rushing around doing the ID stuff last week. Did a rapid detour into the shop and snapped it up for £1

From the website.......................

"One for those of us who love tales of the natural world, and who enjoy seasonal woodland walks when things lie deep and crisp and even. John Lewis-Stempel’s The Wood in Winter is a beautiful piece of nature writing about the life of a wood in bleak midwinter, tying in old festivals and traditions which are so weighted with meaning at this time of year. He writes about why being in a wood in winter strips us to our essential soul, and how close encounters with the animals who thrive in this hard season remind us of our own deep connection to the earth.

“A wood on a winter’s eve, no matter where you are, when the snow is falling through the trees, is existence stripped back to the elements. It is the Ice Age returned in miniature.”

Its a 15 minute read and has now gone off to a friend as part of a Christmas present.

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And who got picked out of the jug for the books?

First thing this morning I wrote the names of everyone who commented yesterday and overnight on slips of paper, shut my eyes and picked out 4.

 Vickiey, Joan(Devon), Emma and Happy Hooker

These are the names that came out and comment moderation will now be switched on so addresses will only be seen by me. I'll get the books in the post ASAP.

Thank you to everyone who left a comment - wish I had enough books to send one to everyone!

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

December 7th - Advent Photo + 4 Book Giveaway

 A Very Small and famous book- I  found it for grandchildren's Advent book parcels last year but it isn't really a  book for very small children. So I'll keep it for when they older.

Dylan Thomas originally wrote this little work of prose for radio in 1952 and it then went into book form and has been reprinted many times since.

"All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hand in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. . ."

Dylan Thomas's lyrical account of his childhood Christmases in a small Welsh town, featuring wolves, bears, hippos and Mrs Prothero's cat, has become deservedly famous. Beautifully illustrated by award-winning artist Edward Ardizzone, this classic edition is beloved by fans of Thomas's work and a perfect Christmas gift for young readers building their own childhood Christmas memories.

 

And here are the four Christmas crime books that I've read and would like to pass on.

 

 Leave a comment if you would like one, say which one unless you don't mind (UK only please) and I'll pick out names tomorrow and put comment moderation on so you can leave an address. The books are wrapped ready to send so once I get names and addresses they'll soon be in the post before Christmas.

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue