Julie Goucher ~ Anglers Rest

Originally posted in 2010, with some minor alterations.

The collection of tree ornaments we have are ones that we bought from our first Christmas together. There are others that were given to us by my Mum and each year Stuart and I buy at least one ornament to keep the tradition going. We tend to go for the reds and golds but there are some others that have special meanings to us, such as a Spode china Millenium bauble which always has pride of place, and a gold bell which has a picture of a Border Terrier on the side,which we bought the first Christmas we lost our lovely Monty in 2008.

We also have a lovely set of the Lilliput Lane tree decorations as Stuart collections the lovely houses, and especially the snowy and wintery ones.

The decorations that we had as when I was a child are still with my Mum, including the fairy that my Grandfather purchased.

As a child we used to have chocolate ornaments on the tree which I was never allowed to have until Christmas Eve, and even then, only one. Now I don’t have them as we have our current Border Terrier, Alfie just incase he is tempted by the chocolate.

This post was originally posted in 2010.

My Grandmother always used to buy hamper coupons from the Unigate milkman, I don’t know if she received any special discount as my Grandfather had worked for them up until he retired, but she always had the coupons and then exchanged them a week or so before Christmas for a hamper. There was always lovely boxes of chocolates, biscuits, tins of ham and deserts and a shop made Christmas pudding. I am sure that there may have been a bottle of Sherry in the hamper, even though my Grandmother was not able to drink alcohol. There was also some lemonade and dilutable juices – like Robinsons, and some fruit.

Even though we had the hamper there was also other bits bought or made. The Christmas cake, and Christmas Puddings were both home made, a delicious joint of gammon that was cooked on the stove on Christmas Eve to be consumed for Christmas Day teatime, a tin of Victoria biscuits made by McVitie’s

We always had Turkey for Christmas Day along with the trimmings. On Boxing Day the usual lunch meal was bubble and Squeak with either the Turkey cold or made into Rissoles. I still have the mincer that my Grandmother used and I still do some of things that we did when I was a child, and those special moments live on for another generation.

Mum makes the most lovely rum truffles, with the proper stuff, not the cheap essence.

Every year, this rather tatty extract from a Woman’s Realm Mag appears. I had chance to have a proper glance at it. The receipe is from The Archer’s Country Cookbook by Martha Woodford published in 1977.

I can certainly vouch for the truffles!

4oz dark cooking chocolate
4oz icing sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons ground almonds
2 tablespoons double cream
2 tablespoons rum
chocolate vermicelli

Melt the chocolate over a basin of hot water. Beat in the icing sugar,egg yolk,almonds,cream and rum and pound altogether until mixture is smooth, and form into little balls. Roll each truffle in a little vermicelli and coat it.

Rather than repost last year entry I thought I would post something a little different.

There is a garden centre a few miles away who always has a fabulous Christmas display. We wondered if, in the throws of a recession this would still be the case and decided to make a visit. As readers will know, I have been unwell for the past 6 weeks with a very bad bout of sciatica, but nonetheless, I wanted to have a go at trying to have a little walk round. I did manage it, but boy was I tired! Anyway,

We arrived at the centre and the display was as a fabulous as always. Lots of different style trees decorated, tableware, tree and room decorations and a rather good selection of festive houses the sort that you can light up and are similiar to Lilliput Lane. Here is a quick snap!

Fabulous! In 2012 the UK is to host the Olympics. This year the theme for the tree decorations was done with links to previous Olympics, which I thought was wonderful. Here is the official website for the Olympics with details of all the previous 47 venues.

This is a popular garden centre, and on the day we visited the staff were replenishing stocks. I commented to the staff the displays were wonderful again and she said the Olympic theme was proving to be a success.