Sending Christmas Wishes

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Julie Goucher

“Remembrance, like a candle,
Shines brightest
at Christmastime”
Charles Dickens

With Mum in hospital, this Christmas it does not feel very Christmas like.  I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the people who have sent good wishes to myself and my family and included Mum in their prayers while Mum has been poorly.  It has been very much appreciated and I have shared those good wishes with Mum, who is truly amazed at the power of the internet.

So, without further ado, from my house to your house Happy Christmas!
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Season’s Greetings from Guildford Circa 1906

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Julie Goucher

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Video – Maid of the Seas

Posted on December 22, 2013 by Julie Goucher

Yesterday I shared my Virtual Advent Tour post, which centred around the Lockerbie Disaster that occurred on 21st December 1988.

Earlier today my husband shared the following video that he had come across from YouTube with me, which visually sums up all that I said.

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Weekend Cooking – Nigella Christmas – Yule Log

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Julie Goucher

Nigella Christmas: Food, Family, Friends,…
As promised, this is the third of four posts taken from this delightful book. This third recipe is for Yule Log and is taken from Nigella’s fabulous website

For the cake
6 medium egg(s) (separated)
150 gram(s) caster sugar
50 gram(s) cocoa powder
1 teaspoon(s) vanilla extract
4 teaspoon(s) icing sugar (to decorate)

For the icing
175 gram(s) dark chocolate (chopped)
200 gram(s) icing sugar
225 gram(s) butter (soft)
1 tablespoon(s) vanilla extract
Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
  2. In a large, clean bowl whisk the egg whites until thick and peaking, then, still whisking, sprinkle in 50g of the caster sugar and continue whisking until the whites are holding their peaks but not dry.
  3. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the remaining caster sugar until the mixture is moussy, pale and thick. Add the vanilla extract, sieve the cocoa powder over, then fold both in.
  4. Lighten the yolk mixture with a couple of dollops of the egg whites, folding them in robustly. Then add the remaining whites in thirds, folding them in carefully to avoid losing the air.
  5. Line a Swiss roll tin with baking parchment, leaving a generous overhang at the ends and sides, and folding the parchment into the corners to help the paper stay anchored.
  6. Pour in the cake mixture and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Let the cake cool a little before turning it out onto another piece of baking parchment. If you dust this piece of parchment with a little icing sugar it may help with preventing stickage, but don’t worry too much as any tears or dents will be covered by icing later. Cover loosely with a clean tea towel.
  7. To make the icing, melt the chocolate – either in a heatproof bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water or, my preference, in a microwave following the manufacturer’s guidelines – and let it cool.
  8. Put the icing sugar into a processor and blitz to remove lumps, add the butter and process until smooth. Add the cooled, melted chocolate and the tablespoon of vanilla extract and pulse again to make a smooth icing. You can do this by hand, but it does mean you will have to sieve the sugar before creaming it with the butter and stirring in the chocolate and vanilla.
  9. Sit the flat chocolate cake on a large piece of baking parchment. Trim the edges of the Swiss roll. Spread some of the icing thinly over the sponge, going right out to the edges. Start rolling from the long side facing you, taking care to get a tight roll from the beginning, and roll up to the other side. Pressing against the parchment, rather than the tender cake, makes this easier.
  10. Cut one or both ends slightly at a gentle angle, reserving the remnants, and place the Swiss roll on a board or long dish. The remnants, along with the trimmed-off bits earlier, are to make a branch or two; you get the effect by placing a piece of cake at an angle to look like a branch coming off the big log.
  11. Spread the yule log with the remaining icing, covering the cut-off ends as well as any branches. Create a wood-like texture by marking along the length of the log with a skewer or somesuch, remembering to do wibbly circles, as in tree rings, on each end.
  12. You don’t have to dust with icing sugar, but I love the freshly fallen snow effect, so push quite a bit through a small sieve, letting some settle in heaps on the plate or board on which the log sits.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by BethFishReads

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Virtual Advent Tour – Lockerbie

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Julie Goucher

I am delighted to take part in the Virtual Advent Tour hosted by Marg & Kelly. This is the third time of taking part. It is a wonderful way to meet other bloggers and spread festive cheer! When I decided to take part I selected two special dates – this is the second of those two dates.

The 21st December is my husband’s birthday. He is the ultimate Christmas baby –  and loves the whole Christmas hype, foods, tree decorations and lots of sparkling, twinkling lights.
Sadly, there is also another dimension to the day. On my husband’s 16th birthday in 1988 the Lockerbie Air Disaster happened. Pan Am flight 103 fell from the sky a victim of terrorist activity and landed in the Lockerbie area. The main fusilage fell in the parish of Tundergarth, a rural hamlet about 4 miles from Lockerbie whilst another part of the aircraft fell into a residential street in Lockerbie. 

My husband always remembers those events and the lives lost. Not just the 270 people, both passengers and crew on the plane, but the residents of Sherwood Crescent including a friend of my husband.

Lockerbie remembers the tragic event in such a tasteful and sombre way. There are various plaques and memorials in Lockerbie and Tundergarth.
  1. A Series of plaques at the Church in Tundergarth Parish, Lockerbie
  2. A Memorial at the location where some locals were killed – Sherwood Cresent, Lockerbie
  3. The Memorial at Dryfesdale Cemetery, Lockerbie
  4. Plaques at Dryfesdale Cemetery, Lockerbie
  5. Tree Plaques at Dryfesdale Cemetery, Lockerbie
  6. Headstones within Dryfesdale Cemetery, Lockerbie
Over the last 20 odd years I have visited the memorials fairly regularly and taken photographs. It was a truly tragic event and yet the locals of Lockerbie have embraced the situation with such a degree of decorum that is refreshing. 

The town will never forget the bond that exists between the border town and the United States. It will never forget the disaster, nor that in a split second or two the lives or so many were lost or changed beyond comprehensible thought. The population of Lockerbie tend the memorial and graves of all as if they are tending one of their own and that is what is so refreshing.That even in death strangers are welcome and remembered.

Dryfesdale Cemetery and Memorial Garden
Taken by Julie Goucher April 2006
You can view the range of photographs commemorating the disaster HERE at GraveEncounters
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Book of Me, Written by Me, Prompt 17

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Julie Goucher

Today is week 17 of what is going to be a 15 month project. Each Saturday, at around 12.30am UK time I will release the prompt for that week’s Book of Me, Written by You.

 If you are new here, welcome! The details, background flyer and Face Book link to the Book of Me can be found HERE. 

This week’s prompt is – Toys & Games

  • Can you remember your first toy, or game?
  • Do you still have it?
  • Who did you play with?
  • Did you play board games?
  • Have you inherited any of your family games & toys?
  • Share some pictures if you would like to!

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Postcard Friendship Friday – Christmas Card circa 1843

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Julie Goucher
First Christmas card
Submitted as part of Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by The Best Hearts are Crunchy 

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The In-Depth Genealogist – Digital Magazine – Issue 11 – OUT NOW!

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Julie Goucher

Picture
The next issue of the free digital magazine is available NOW!

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You can read my Introduction post HERE and you can follow the column by visiting The In-Depth Genealogist website and subscribing via email or via twitter and Facebook.

This month’s Across the Pond column is about Festive Spirits

Happy reading & researching!

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A Merry Little Christmas by Debbie Macomber

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Julie Goucher

A Merry Little Christmas (A Cedar Cove…
A delightful little book with two festive reads from Debbie Macomber. Both stories are centred around the fiction and lovely town of Cedar Cove.

1225 Christmas Tree Lane

 Continuing with the popular Cedar Cove stories. This festive catch up is based around divorced Beth Morehouse. Beth has been divorced for a few years and has two adult daughters who conspire to get their parents back together. Following her divorce Beth gave up teaching and purchased a Christmas tree farm. She also has a love of animals and her Christmas is further complicated when she finds 10 black lab puppies on her doorstep. Meanwhile the daughters have asked that their father,Kent, join them for Christmas as the start of the plan for reconciliation with their mother. Kent meets a colleague at the airport and confesses he is miserable without his wife ex wife and he decides to make her jealous. Meanwhile back in Cedar Cove Beth is starting a friendship with the local vet. Will they get back together?

5-B Poppy Lane

A spin off from the Cedar Cove series. The central characters are Ruth, a post graduate who is completing her teacher training at the local college. It’s the festive season and she randomly writes a Christmas card to a marine based in Afghanistan and over a period of months they develop quite a friendship. Will it develop further? Once the marine, Paul, is home on leave they see each other often and the relationship develops. Ruth’s Grandmother upon meeting Paul is taken back to the years of the Second World War and over the course of a few weeks she shares, previously unknown to Ruth, information of her time in France, the Resistance and then a concentration camp.

The two stories are lovely, lighthearted festive reads and whilst Poppy Lane deals with some serious issues, it highlights the point of talking to your elderly relatives and perhaps uncovering some long hidden truths.

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Virtual Advent Tour – Kiva – Genealogists for Families Project

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Julie Goucher

I am delighted to take part in the Virtual Advent Tour hosted by Marg & Kelly. This is the third time of taking part. It is a wonderful way to meet other bloggers and spread festive cheer! When I decided to take part I selected two special dates – this is the first of those two dates.

The 18th of December always signifies two things in our family, exactly one week to Christmas and my late beloved Grandmother’s birthday. Today she would have been 101 years old and I so wish she was here, more so this year than any other.
Back in 2011 I made my first loan of $25 to the Genealogists for Families Project at Kiva. The basic principle is that you loan $25 through the scheme to individuals who do not have access to traditional banks. When the loan is repaid you can either withdrawal your money or loan again. You can make many loans or just one or two. The choice is up to you. I should point out, that you don’t need to be a genealogist to join the genealogist team, who have made loans of a staggering $82,250 at the time of writing this post. To demonstrate how successful the project is, when I wrote a similar post in 2011 the team had loaned $5,350. In fact for the last two years I have made regular loans and I always make a loan commemorate my Grandmother’s birthday.
My Grandmother was a true inspiration to me. We spend many, many hours together, shared shopping trips, hospital visits, conversations, jokes, hugs, cuddles and laughter. When she passed away she left a void that was very big and I knew that I would never fill that void. That has indeed been the case and today, I feel a real sadness, not just that she is not here, but that Mum is in hospital and I so wish that my Grandmother was here, so that I could share my worries and concerns and tap into the wisdom font that my Grandmother was.
So, in memory of an outstanding lady, who gave me so much I have made another loan with Kiva.

Christmas is the time for giving and I want to commemorate the lady who was my Grandmother. Acknowledge her achievements and values and to assist others in her memory.

The photograph here is of my Grandmother, Lilian Edith Butcher nee Matthews (1912 – 1995) on the occasion of her 21st Birthday.

If you would like to join the team, then please click HERE

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