Three days into 2021 and so far things are looking rather like 2020 with the exception of the UK finally being free of the Eew (say it out loud and you'll get the joke). Things in the Brexit department are definitely looking much better!
On the home-front, I have taken the command decision (as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, also Toilet Roll Faerie and General Dogsbody) to declare this home will no longer make or purchase a bloody Christmas Pudding EVER again, full stop, end of, I'm done making or buying a Christmas Pudding that is NEVER eaten and is merely shuffled around in the pantry until the following Christmas whereupon it is quietly 'retired' to the food waste recycling bin.
When we were packing out the old house to move to this one (September 2018) I found no less than four badly out of date Christmas Puddings - two home-baked by me and two purchased from the supermarket. We bought one that first Christmas in the new house - binned when found as I went looking for the ingredients for the 2019 one I stupidly fell for making last year - the 2019 one was binned uneaten the same day the decorations came down. This year the store-bought Pudding will likely do the same.
I'm DONE with Christmas Puddings! If God graciously permits Mankind to survive long enough to deck the halls, etc, for a Christmas 2021, I'm making us a Dundee Cake (fruit cake but much nicer ingredients than most fruit cakes or Christmas Puddings) AND a sponge Christmas Cake (complete with marzipan under the fondant AND atop the cake as decoration). The small Dundee Cake we bought locally this year was actually eaten before Christmas and the Christmas Cake was gone by the middle of Boxing Day. I may - keyword MAY - give making a Yule Log cake a go (Swiss Roll decorated to look, well, like a log, but with cutesie marzipan racoons and red squirrels and a fox or two charmingly nestled into the marzipan holly and ivy). Paul has shown a preference, in the end, for apple and cherry pies with fancy French Vanilla ice cream. I'm getting older, perhaps next year I'll stick with nice fruit pies and skip the baking of fancy cakes altogether.
The Christmas tree is looking rather lovely; the battery operated lights on the potted evergreens are bringing walkers down the path to admire (colours, we needed something cheery out there this year). I was going to try for another constellation display (last year the Plough and Northern Lights display in the kitchen window went down a treat with the walkers) but when the Star of Bethlehem formed in the real skies I knew the candle bridge was the better choice. That window, nicely enough, sits on a direct line to the Star (when it was still showing) and was just right with the candle bridge, one walker came back with his fancy-schmancy camera and the resulting photo came through the door NYD - a definite keeper, that photo. I'd scan it and post it here but my husband doesn't want to chance the GPS linking and giving away our location (the dubious joys of 'modern times', having to worry about GPS locators).
Christmas, Boxing Day, NYE and NYD meals were rather nice, the only traditional meal we had was steak pie and we had that NYE, not NYD. Grilled sirloin for Christmas with baby potatoes and garden peas, and I won't bore you with the details of the rest of the 'festive' meals.
We made NY Resolutions, printed and posted on the fridge and are having a whale of a good time poking fun at some of the things on our lists.
The Little Dictator running Scotland (the now, ROLL ON MAY 2021 ELECTIONS!) is probably going to put Scotland into a full lockdown tomorrow (Monday 4th January) as the number of cases and hospitalisations continues to sky rocket.
I had a good vent about Sturgeon last week so I'll let it rest.
Onwards and upwards for 2021!!
