NOVEMBER COLOURS

We had a lovely dinner party with old friends from our wedding of 50 years ago.   At the last minute I decided to make some gluhwein (gluvine).  I tried some pre-made 'mulled wine'. The first, which was Marks and Spencer, was so sweet I decanted it back into the bottle for another day when I need a sugar boost. 

I am rather partial to Fitou wine so I simply poured a bottle of that in the pan. Ilona added sliced mandarin oranges and I threw in some almonds à la Christina Bell. Excellent!

I said to John MacLeod when his and my glass kept needing to be refilled:  "There's a terrible problem of evaporation in this part of the West of Scotland!" to which he quickly replied " Yes, it goes up into the atmosphere and comes back down as rain!"  Ha, ha!  I liked that! 

When planning our dinner I couldn't resist an impulse purchase of a (small) bottle of Mateus Rosé wine.  As we served this at our wedding in 1967 in Drumchork Hotel in Aultbea I just wanted a trip down memory lane.  Indeed, we all recalled that how this wine was the absolute height of sophistication in the 60s!

However I read on Wikipedia:

The Mateus brand has declined. In the UK in 2002 the wine was re-packaged and relaunched in a deliberate ploy to capitalise on 1970s nostalgia, although the wine itself had already been made less sweet and slightly more sparkling, in response to modern popular preference for slightly drier wine.

I tasted it: absolutely no flavour nor sparkle. Thumbs down. (However I still like the shape of the bottle!) 

These flowers have been on the window ledge in the cold 'garden' room for 3 weeks.  They were part of a large bouquet I was given at our final Bearsden Young Fiddlers Concert November 4th. The early morning November light on them today was lovely.

 These are the colours of the above photo that I wanted to capture.

An example of early morning light is best demonstrated in this painting by Norwegian artist Johan Christian Clausen Dahl

Ilona brought a lovely selection of her own preserves plus her own willow tray that she grew and wove. Also included was genuine Isle of Skye sea salt which is made using a polytunnel as a 'room' for production.

We received lovely cards and bottles of wine.  One card came from 'John'.  It turned out we have a secret admirer in the form of the young man who helps our next door neighbour with her garden.  If he had signed his last name I would have picked up my error of thinking it was from 'oor ain John' (who I thanked by mistake!)

Which reminds me Christmas is coming. Every year we always get one... always just one... card which is signed 'Mary' or whatever.  After much scratching of heads we always conclude: we simply do not know who it is!