Plough Monday

Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night was the day the agricultural year started, but before they began  their hard work, the plough men and boys took the opportunity to have a bit of fun by dressing up, disguising their faces and processing around the village to perform a plough play and hopefully be given some money.  The plough was often blessed in the church on the Sunday before, so that day was named as Plough Sunday.

Turn out for plough Monday

Up, fellows now

Buckle the horses

And follow the plough. 

Photo of picture from my book 'The English Year' by Steve Roud. It's described as 'from George Walker's - The Costume of Yorkshire 1814'

The church in the village still celebrates Plough Sunday and in the past I've walked up the road to take a photo of the decorated plough, the Morris dancers and the procession around the village.

This was 2023

This year I didn't - it was freezing out there, no sun and rain threatened, not good for hanging around waiting.

The 12th of January is also the Old New Year's Day which many people carried on celebrating after the calendar changed in the 1752.

If on the 12th January the sun shine

It foreshadows much wind.

Country folk often went on using the old calendar for years so there was also 'old twelfth night' on the 17th, which means there is still time to get Christmas decor down or to Wassail the apple trees.

Aldi Veggie Meal and Food Shopping

 This is another of the Vegetarian things Aldi have in each December for Christmas. 'Melting Centre Nut Roasts'. I've looked back in the posts labelled 'Vegetarian Taste Test' and can't find that these have been tried before but last year they had one called 'Root Vegetable and Brie Nut Roast' which sounds similar, just different veg this year.

I tried  one last Monday and I've still got a few of the  potatoes left from the pre-Christmas 5p pack so cut one into wedges and popped in with the nut roast to roast.

The nut roast looked OK but had a very weird dry texture - when I eat the second in the pack I'll make some gravy to go with it............or maybe cheese sauce - not sure either sounds appealing to make it better but I'll persevere! It's nowhere near as nice as the homemade nut roast I made (after buying these frozen things - yes I'm an idiot!). I know I've said before that potatoes are my  least favourite vegetables and Never eat mashed- ugh. These cheap potatoes weren't very good either - very floury texture (variety was Electra and will be avoided in future)

On Wednesday I finally got around to cooking the red cabbage which was the last of the 5p things from Aldi before Christmas, I meant to do it boxing day but forgot and we had plenty of other veg anyway. Then kept putting it off as it needs a long time in the oven to braise nicely (I add onion and red wine vinegar and a bit of brown sugar) it's delicious done like that,  I can't eat it raw. Good thing red cabbage keeps for ages.

The  fruit and veg. bought New Years Day from Tesco on the way to Son's had all gone, as had several other bits of store-cupboard stuff and my list was bigger than usual....I don't like to get too short of store-cupboard food in January/February as you never know what the weather will be.......... so I popped to Aldi on Thursday early and detoured via Tesco on the way home for a couple of other  things before the weather turned nasty again.........much rain was forecast.

I know everyone loves looking at other peoples shopping so here you go, a HUGE (for me) shop. 

Although I'm not enthusiastic enough to go through it one by one!

Not in the photo as they went straight into the freezer were 2 x 4 pints milk, frozen peas and 2 UPF  things - mini vegetable spring rolls and Proactive cholesterol reducing spread (although the latter is classed as a useful UPF).  2 other UPF's are the Aldi Cheese and Onion rolls and the tub of Bisto cheese sauce. Vegetables are mini potatoes, celery, leeks, carrots, onions and Cavolo Nero kale. Fruit is a dozen apples and  3 packs of Aldi dried prunes. Store cupboard items are 2 tins salmon, rapeseed cooking oil, brown sugar, plain flour, spaghetti, decaf ground coffee and tomato sauce. Things that go in the fridge were 2 packs of extra mature cheddar, Shropshire blue cheese and butter.

Total spend was £58.69 (total food spend to date for January £66.94) and now I don't need to buy anything  for ages as I have plenty of things for the main part of a meal in the freezer.

There was no snow or gales in this part of Suffolk on Friday just plenty of heavy rain.......all day . Really nasty dismal day, I went nowhere.

Have a good weekend - I'll be back Monday

 

January Library Book Photo

 Oh My Goodness - so many books! all these  lovely library books collected, all books I'd reserved on line and almost all crime of course.

From the left -the new book by Kate Ellis in her Wesley Peterson Devon series; Another new book in the series about Owen Archer in Medieval York by Candace Robb; The second by Sally Smith featuring Gabriel Ward KC in Edwardian London. Next is the first of three Val McDermid books in her Karen Pirie series. I was going to wait until they appear on TV but there are no plans for season 3. Next in the picture is 'Spring' a non fiction book by Michael Morpurgo which might just be a section of his previous book 'All Around the Year' . Then the latest in the series by Chris Nickson featuring thief taker Simon Westow and set in 1800's Leeds. Next in the photo is Winter by Val McDermid - no idea what this is or why I reserved it. And again no idea what 'Gunner' by Alan Parks is all about. I thought I'd read all the updated Campion books by Mike Ripley but this one isn't in my book-of-books-read. The Queen who came in from the Dark (Should be Cold  thank you to Kirsten) is another by S.J.Bennett in which our late queen gets involved in solving crimes. The small paperbacks are Still Waters by ECR Lorac a recent publication by British Library Crime Classics. The last two are Murder in York by J R Ellis which I think I've failed with previously and something I don't know at all The Bone Road by N E Solomon.

I've still got four here from the December van visit when there were 13 brought home. I've read seven, and abandoned two. The books I read are on the December 2025 page or January 2026 Books Read page.

I need to stop writing this blog post and start reading PDQ!!