Thursday 16 December 2010

ALL IS CALM; ALL IS BRIGHT

It rained last night just as I was coming home from the Bearsden Burgh Choir concert in New Kilpatrick Church. The good news was that it was rain and not snow as the temperature was a balmy +5 degrees Centigrade. The bad news was that my windscreen wipers and scoosher wouldn't work. However I have been on the internet today and found the problem is that they were frozen. More on this anon as Iain still has to fix them.


Overnight the temperature went down to - 4.8 degree Centigrade so all that rain turned to ice. Having caught up on the chores I decided to stay inside today and to that end did a test bake of some sausage rolls (using Christmassy sausage meat stuffing for the filling and store-bought roll-out flaky pastry).

Both Bill and Adam arrived for morning coffee so the rolls were pretty well polished off! This exercise is my attempt to Christmas bake NOT using sugary sweet stuff. I love mince pies, fruit cake, candied fruit but lately I am staying off this stuff for dental reasons, i.e. with gum recession I am more prone to tooth decay as there is no enamel at the gum border. Iain never eats this stuff anyway and Mairi is very mindful of the kiddies eating sweet stuff; they simply are not in the habit of it.


Afterward coffee time Iain headed out to Edinburgh to a meeting about Scotland's Energy Policy. Yes, he is still spending much of his time on the phone and the internet trying to solve the World ... the UK ... Scotland's energy crisis position!

Meanwhile I am solving the energy crisis in our house by finishing the painting. You know how it is: 90% of a job gets done but that last 10% takes 90% of the time (and effort)!

Not one of my favourite chores but it was helped by two things: a glass of mulled wine and Classic FM radio playing Christmas carols and other Christmas music of the cathedral or college choirs of England. Lovely. I can conduct Hark the Herald admirably perched on a ladder.


I finished the painting to Silent Night, and yes, All is [now] calm; all is bright. Time to open the lovely mail that daily arrives. I love getting cards so I settle down to a bowl of squash and butter bean soup that I made earlier and the last of the mulled wine.


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