Singing Chicken

Here's a pic of all the Christmas puds and mincemeat before they were taken to be sold at church.

Now I have a couple of blogging problems and hope somebody can help me.
I am delighted to see I have a third follower who has an eye like a horse's, and I thought I would have a look at that blog to see what it was all about, but find
I have to join up before I have even seen it. Well I suppose the only thing to do is to join up. So I think I have answered that one myself.

I thought I would follow Goose Breeder but when I look at Goose Breeder's blog I can't see anything to click. Maybe you can't follow it. Anyway I will wait and see what suggestions I get.



Enjoyed the Big Town Shops and lunch and got loads of stuff. Saw a nice coat to buy with Christmas money for meeee, but hummed and haa-ed and decided on the way home that I would get it after all so went to the internet yesterday and couldn't find it. Might have known this would happen. So now I will have to phone the shop and see about how I can still get it. Maybe someone else local will be going to The Big Town Shops or maybe they'll post it.

Enjoyed the Indian meal but felt I drank too much and therefore talked too much, so today I am trying to discreetly find out if this was so. If I ask them outright they will just say "No, you were fine".

Last night I had a dream that I was in a stage show and just before curtain up on the opening night I was told I was to be the donkey and sing the donkey's solo which went up to top 'C'. I was thrilled and hoped I would pull it off.
It had nothing to do with the Donkey Serenade.

The pictured donkey is Tufty and he lives at Redwings Horse Sanctuary in Norwich. I adopted him years ago (along with 100's of other people!). I didn't take the pic but found it on the net. I hope it can be enlarged because it was pretty tiny when I clicked on it!

I had four comments today, published them all, and now I can only remember where two of them were so sorry, KD, I think the other two were yours and I have no time today to trawl the posts looking for them. Should have written down where they were. Grrrrr to this blogging sometimes.

Here is the recipe for cheesejacks as requested by Kath at Railway Cottage.

5oz /150g porridge oats
6oz/175g grated strong cheddar cheese
1 beaten egg
2oz/50g butter or marge, melted
1/2 teaspoon /2.5 ml crushed rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Press into a shallow 7inch/18cm square cake tin and bake in oven at 180c/350F/gas mark 4 for 40 minutes until golden. Cut into slices and serve hot or cold.

Variations - try mixing in some cayenne pepper or try that Mexicana cheese rather than cheddar.

Home Alone today.I have spent toooooooo much time looking at things to buy for Christmas and family December birthday presents.Will see what the Big Town has but it's good to have the net to fall back on. You can only do so much and walk so far in a day.



Chimney was swept yesterday so we can have fires again. It's mostly hailing today which puts one right in the fire mood.

Now, when I put a reply to a comment on my own blog, my photo (or, rather, my cat's photo) is no longer appearing. What's going on?

This autumn for some reason I just didn't get round to planting bulbs in my three half barrels in front of the house. I think I will blame the sunny October. I just didn't want to pull out my flourishing summer bedding to make way for bulbs just then. Then we went away in early November and when I came back I realised there were no more bulbs for sale. The half barrels are on view from the road so now they will be very conspicuously colourless in spring. "Tut tut, look at that! Lazy Foody just didn't bother last autumn". What can I do?
I have had winter pansies suggested to me. Are there are other spring flowery ideas, please? I'd like more variety. Three barrels with the same flowers might look a bit uninteresting.

Anyway....three positive thoughts:



1. IIIIIIIII am getting to sing "Walking in the Air" in a couple of weeks' time. It's not really what I would have chosen but I was miffed beyond when someone else nabbed it for our concert last year so when I was asked this year I felt I couldn't turn it down. One day I'll be too old for it. It's now or never.



2. Christmas shopping this Saturdaaaaaaaaaaay!!!! In the Big Tooooowwwwwn!!!!!!!! Not in this county, not in the next, but in the next.



3. Indian meal this Fridaaaaayyyyy!!!!!

These are not exactly positive thoughts for today because they are all about the future, but I just can't manage three different ones every day. Those thoughts - and others - are keeping me going through this drudgery of work and are keeping the dark modds of last week at bay.

Sunday was stir-up Sunday. I mention that in passing because this isn't pudding mix, it's mincemeat cooling down in the porch.
I made 9lb of mincemeat between Friday and Saturday. I'll keep 4 or 5lb and the other jars will be sold at church along with some puddings.
No more than that gets sold. Most people buy rather than make their mince pies.



The singing group quiz and social was cancelled so the "cheesejacks" I had made for it had to stay at home ..mmmmmm.



It was sooooo wet, wet, wet! All weekend nearly, it just rained. Doing any riding or anything outside was out of the question, so I made a nice damson jam and coconut steam pudding.
So much for getting trim before Christmas.

I did a post recently about pony gaits, but now I have been enlightened and think I got something wrong. I have never seen the tread left by a galloping horse but lately I noticed the tracks a galloping dog left on the beach. I strongly suspect that the horse pattern would be no different. Well, all four feet made a straight line, then there was a short gap, then another four in a straight line etc. My foot tracks were to right and left. I don't want to go to the trouble of hand-drawing it again. You'll know what I mean.

I'm not doggy so here's a pic not of a galloping dog but, well it has to be a horse. It isn't me. Got it off the net.

There was a survey in the real news that comes at the end of The News that found that the average woman (only women were asked) cooks only 9 different ordinary weekday meals. That's not bad for an average as most people aren't nuts about food like me and there are only 7 days in a week. It did mean very ordinary after-work weekday meals, not special occasions. What would my nine most basic be?

In no order:
1. Pasta and sauce - maybe smoked bacon, tomato, garlic, mushrooms etc but also maybe mushrooms and cream or chopped sausages, white wine, cream and mustard.



2. Mediterranean fish, which is just white fish cooked in the same pan as peppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms, courgettes and tomatoes.
3. My lentil and cheese mash. Red lentils, onion, garlic, grated cheese all stirred up.
4.Grilled sausages and beans
5. Grilled meat, plain or marinated, sometimes kebabbed
6. Baked potatoes with cheese and beans or any left over suitable stuff



7. Big Spanish omelette with onion, potato, mushroom, bacon or sausage, tomato and cheese in it
8. Plain fish sealed in foil and oven-ed



9. A fry-and-grill-up with sausages, egg, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes if I have any leftover cooked ones, black pudding if I can lay my hands on it, beans, toast

It's hard to keep to nine with so many variations.

There are other meals that are still suitable for weekdays but are bit more involved to cook than the above but still aren't special enough for occasions. I will do a post on these "in betweenie's" some other time.

You never leave your problems behind. This is quite well expressed by the Roman philosopher Seneca. I am a Classicist first and foremost, you see, and I think I was the only one in my University class who actually liked this particular work by Seneca. The title of it escapes me now, as do many things. Anyway...



Seneca said that even though you might travel away and see different lands and broaden your mind, you will take your hangups with you. I think I knew that before reading Seneca and that's probably why the words seemed to speak to me. He could have been me. On holidays or just away for a weekend or even a day, sometimes you get a feeling that if only you could just escape and start again somewhere else, it would all be alright. However, it isn't alright in the end. You get a new job and meet new people but those bring their own new problems. You get put upon in the job and come across people who annoy and offend you.
So I wake up to lovely views and I have kind people and beautiful pets and a lot to be thankful for, but there are always other problems. That brings me back to the effort of thinking of the three positive things a day and trying to count my blessings.
1. Despite this terrible wet and windy weather, I didn't get wet or cold in my cosy coat and zipped-in fleece (as pictured before).
2. I don't have to go to that cafe today. It's a Wednesday thing and it's a loyalty thing. My colleague M goes there on a Wednesday because she goes there on a Wednesday. I rarely have anything I wholly enjoy there. That could be the subject of another post. Anyway, colleague is flooded in today so I can have a baked potato at my desk and do internet stuff instead.



3. The 3 roads in and out of this town are all closed! Office dead as most people left mid-morning. Boss marooned 60 miles away ha ha! That's the best bit! It might mean I don't get to my show practice or home but how exciting! This has to be worth more than 3 positive points. I can stay with colleague B. Hubby who works elsewhere will get home so the pets will be fine.

So they've sent worms to space without their consent. Mr. Glum Worm in Space - with banana? No, that's the moon. Well, you try drawing round a bottle top on a laptop fingerpad.

What were my three positive thoughts about yesterday then? I can't think of even one. I met a friend for lunch but the only thing I remember about it was me struggling to think of interesting things to say or things to ask her about.
Had a violin lesson but that's not always positive because I always feel under- prepared and also I had arrived late, had brought the wrong music and had ordered the wrong music from the music shop! Music lessons are supposed to improve the memory. Hmph.

I think I'll give up this pretending to be happy stuff.

I was listening to BH in the car on Sunday morning. They were talking about happines and how to measure and achieve it. I didn't hear it all, so to cut a long story short thay said you shoudl think of 3 positive things each day that have happened to you, to keep your outlook positive and make you feel grateful. We all tend to just complain about things that have not been as we have hoped and we should be doign the opposite.
Right. What were my three things yesterday?
1. At least I have a house with food to eat and tea to drink.
Yes, well I would expect these things anyway, so I won't count them. They'ree too obvious. Carry on like that and I will have hundreds of positive things each day and will be judged too happy, which I am not.So what then? The sun shone.
Then the sun went in and it rained so that was knocked on the head.



Still on 1. A lot of birds followed me when I went to the ponies - 2 robins, 3 blue tits, a great tit, a male and female chaffinch, a something else and 2 stonechats. That did feel quite special so that can be item 1.



2. The sun came back out and stayed out. There's 2.



3.I went riding and had a nice time. Yes, well I often go riding and enjoy it so is it special enough or is a "given"? No way! That would be an attitude far too ungracious to be expressed! That is my no.3.

I will have to keep this up. Every day, I moan, moan, moan about my work, my boss, my colleagues, my clients etc etc .... I might easily turn into a version of my late aunt N, who just picked fault with everything and if she wasn't complaining we were all worried as to what was wrong with her!

The person on the radio said transient, material things like winning money or being given a nice bottle of wine won't give you lasting happiness once you have, say, drunk the wine. Well, I don't know. You can enjoy it all evening and be grateful to the person who gave you it. It could be one of your three things for that day - that someone was kind and generous to you and you enjoyed the wine.
He said you feel much better if you give. If you donate money to Oxfam one day, you feel better for it. Well, I can't say I do. I know I've done a good thing but the feeling lasts no more than a few minutes and if I did start to feel good for longer I would be warning myself against becoming smug and self-righteous!
It's no good starting the three things for today. I'm back at work, it's cold and my boss has just given me something to do that I know nothing about. Hmph. Back to the moaning and misery then.

The face and the rider were self portraits. The robin I photographed at Teesdale High Force but the little so-and-so turned his side to me at last minute. It was nearly a perfect full frontal.

This was meant to be posted on Monday but I forgot.

A big feature of a lot of Foody holidays is the river. I suppose most places I go are in or near some river valley and that valley shapes the whole landscape in the area and dictates where the roads go and where the crossings are. I rather like walking beside rivers. Unless they are upland streams gushing down ravines, they usually give you a gentle gradient.
The main natural "must see" is Teesdale High Force (below).



I think I read that it is the highest single drop "force" in England but I'd like to check again. That black rock on all but the sunniest days does make this beauty spot feel rather gloomy. I think I had a preference for Lower Force.



Below is Lunedale. The Lune is a tributary of the Tees. We also visited Weardale, the upper reaches being particularly scenic.



The weather most of the time was not too kind so I have very few photos, which is a shame as it so picturesque with its trailing stone walls and stone barns. It is very reminiscent of Swaledale in the Yorkshire Dales. The villages I might even describe as the northern Cotswolds. In November, there was no aubretia and no roses round the doors. There were no stone mullions. However, the pretty stone cottages were surrounded by stone walls, set in patterns of little wall-enclosed fields, with narrow wall-enclosed lanes leading from the streets and skirting the fields. You can still see the medieval ridge and furrow marks in those fields. They are largely just unimproved rough grass and in March when I have passed through that area it's one place I can be assured of seeing displaying lapwings. Village favourites are Cotherstone, Egglestone, Romaldkirk, Mickleton and Newbiggin, all in Teesdale; in Weardale anywhere including Westgate and upstream form there.

The Bowes Museum is just outside Barnard Castle. There were (temporary) original Canalettos to keep this Venezia-phile happy, plenty other paintings, pianos, pianetti, textiles, pocelain, a stuffed siamese twin goat(s?!) and of course the star attraction, the silver swan automaton. It gets cranked up every day at 2pm and was a great sight.

Just because I holidayed in Teesdale doesn't mean necessarily that it is far from home. I have enjoyed hols close to home in the past. But that doesn't mean it's near home either. We started the 9 days with a duty visit to see my old Dad. I didn't think he was coping that well but I am doing things about it. Then we called on a very dear old friend for a night and a day, then on to Upper Teesdale. It was just grrrrreat.

I almost feel I've come full circle with this blog. It hasn't been a year yet but it's winter again. I am doing the same things I remember describing when this blog started - walking up the hill before work every morning to feed the ponies and meeting my robin, which is following me up and down the road. There is a new cat at the corner house and it is out most mornings, stalking the very place where I used to feed the robin so I'll have to feed it somewhere else. How far will it be prepared to travel for its food?



When I get to work and step out of the car, there's a robin waiting for me there! I always ask it if it's the same one. It wouldn't follow me for 32 miles by road, or overland which would be shorter, but I always wonder.

It hasn't snowed yet but on holiday in Upper Teesdale last week we got some sleet.

I meant to say in the last post....I will do a post about recent hol but I'm waiting until the photos are on here.

Sorry about lack of picture today.
Some police cycling training booklet has been produced to tell cops how to cycle and it's 93 pages long. Somebody who once trained Strathclyde Police in cycling was on the radio this morning and he implied that he thought the booklet was too short!
Boris was on too. I think Boris is great. I love his bungling manner, his humour, his looks (not in the way that I might fancy him, but he's so very distinctive and individual in his appearance) and his turn of phrase, but I felt today he talked too long and didn't answer the questions. I would also like to say that when I cycled I always rearscanned and looked all around me all the time.
Have been to the gym. (Well I can't do my evening forays any more, now it's dark). I have crepe soled shoes now, and I notice that after a while they start sticking to the walk-a-lator belt. (what do you call those walking/running machines?)Anyway this never happened with any other shoes I had before. these must heat up with the friction. It's like being in one of those pubs with sticky carpets.
Ate too much on hol but now I am back to eating less and exercising as well so I'm looking forward to some bits falling off. I am definitely allowed to eat that big piece of boss' birthday cake now, that is right beside me.

This isn't a proper post as I have bloggers' block again.
Only things that come to mind are 1. that I am eating a chicken tikka sandwich which has no hint of Indian spice taste whatsoever.
2. I made a mistake about the autoharp quote. I said it was £195. It isn't, it's £129. As it includes strings, the price of which I've forgotten, it doesn't seem too bad at all.

That looks like it I'm afraid!

Here is a photo of St. Nicholas' Pudding. I made it on the day the computer passed out. It contains prunes, fresh plums and orange rind and you are supposed to make a sauce to accompany it, but I didn't because it required 2 lb of plums just for the sauce and I wasn't able to buy 2lb of plums as it was the end of the box when I reached the stall and they were mostly all squashy. It was delicious anyway. It came from the Pudding Club recipe book.
Why is it called St. Nicholas' pudding though? The feast of St. Nicholas was Christmas Day, I thought, or thereabouts, but plums are late summer/early autumn fruit. Ooops, I should know all about St. Nicholas because I read Jeremy Seal's book, now what was it called? "Santa" I think. However I found it sooooo tedious! t was too dry. How could anyone make such an exciting subject so dull? The only bits I liked were the bits about his children back home, so that's saying something.
I ate tooooo much on holiday. If I don't slim down before Christmas I'll have no clothes to fit after that great feast so tomorrow I buy a gym pass for the winter. No, this isn't procrastinating. I'm very good at dieting. I just have something else I have to do today in the gym slot.

I apologise profusely for going away without a word but here's the explanation:
I took my work laptop home two weekends ago and the hard drive just came to the end of its life with hardly any warning. I was avised to just get everything onto a memory stick and switch the thing off as soon as possible, so I did. I was going to post that very day with a photo of St. Nicholas Pudding so that will follow very soon. The home computer died some months ago so I couldn't use that instead.
On the Monday when I got to work I had to arrange for this laptop to be collected and mended and in the meantime I borrowed a spare one. However, I only ever go into my blog via My Favourites. I obviously didn't have my favourites on the spare and could I find my blog just by searching the internet? No, I couldn't. This happened to me before. A couple of years ago I had a blog for a few weeks, then I forgot how to find it. It's still out there somewhere. I couldn't find the other blogs which I follow either, so I am particularly sorry to Kippers Dickie and Hungry Horace.
A blogless week went by but of course I was due to be on holiday the next week, which I would have said in a post that week, if I had had access to my blog. So off I went without a word. The laptop was returned during my holiday week and this is the first I have seen of it in two weeks. I am soooo relieved to have it back.
I have felt terribly guilty about this disappearance but I couldn't let people know.
I will do lots of posts soon and lots of photos but I have lots of work to catch up on just now.
I haven't even opened the comments because I feel so embarrassed. I will open them and reply but I feel I just want to give this apology and explanation before I do anything else.
This Christmas I think we need to get ourseves a computer for home.