So, the shortest day has been and the days are now getting longer – summer is on its way! No doubt a great relief to our chickens who have been sleeping around 15 hours a night lately.

As a cheery Merry Christmas to you all, here is a tune I put together this afternoon. It’s pretty crappy: I didn’t spend too much effort with it, and I’m not terribly good at playing live. It’s played with acoustic guitar, electric bass and tambourine (played like a bodhrán) as accompaniment to my accordion!

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.mp3

Merry Christmas!

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So, managed to finish most of the wrapping for this year. We decided to get some re-usable bags and put pressies in them wrapped in newspaper. Any pressies that didn’t fit we wrapped in normal wrapping paper (we unfortunately left it too late to order some recycled paper, and couldn’t find any in town ). It’s the best we could do with regard to eco-friendly. Our Christmas cards this year were all electronic: also as eco-friendly as I could muster. Daisy found a good tip: use Christmas cards you’ve received this year as gift tags next year (means chopping them up of course!).

On Saturday we travel to Wales to collect mother-in-law, and we are going to drive back the same day so that we get to see the Strictly Come Dancing (same as Dancing with the Stars in the US) Final on our decent TV We’re rather into the show, like every year, and even more so now we’re doing ballroom lessons. There’s a cricketer and a rugby player in the final this year, and both are superb; it’s hard to know who will win, but I think the rubgy player’s ‘journey’ and his strength in the free-style dance might see him win.

So mother-in-law’s arrival on Saturday means we’ve been busy doing a bit of tidying up (still lots to do though). Still, I’m really looking forward to Xmas now, so tidying up can be fun with a bit of music blaring out

So, it’s my last day at work today before the Christmas break, and it’s my first day in a new building.

Our whole department has moved from one building to another, and I have to say the new building is quite nice. It’s still open plan (boo), and despite being on an outside wall, I’ve still ended up no window view The new open plan area is a little more cosy, which is sort of good, because it somehow feels less open plan. Perhaps one thing I prefer about this building, and that is that it is warmer. Anyhoo, I shall still work from home a couple days a week, so it doesn’t make a huge amount of different for me.

Looking forward to the holidays now.

Now, I’m really into all this eco stuff; I like to buy eco-friendly, organic produce and I like to shop ethically. However, I really hate the way that companies are starting to jump on this bandwagon in the same way they jumped on the internet when they realised it might make them a bit of extra cash.

There’s a company called Cooperative Insurance that are advertising on TV at the moment to get you to buy eco-friendly car-insurance (already sounds a bit suspect doesn’t it?). The idea is that they give money to charities that plant trees for you to offset the carbon that your car emits during driving. But firstly they only say they will offset 20%, not all of it, they only use an average mileage of some random car somewhere, and well, quite frankly it’s all a crock of shit. Although their website has a little star with “at no cost to you” written by it, the fact that their car insurance is almost double the price I normally pay for car insurance certainly doesn’t seem “at no cost” to me.

I reckon the idea is that they charge you so much for car insurance that you decide to use your bike; now that’s green.

We ran out of edible goodies in the house this afternoon, and we need them on these dark winter evenings so I decided to make some. I made two lots of cookies using recipes from a little recipe book I bought ages ago in a tea shop called Muffins in the Forest of Dean near where I used to live. Both these recipes are really quick and easy to make – only 20 minutes from start to finish!

Chocolate Biscuits

4 oz margarine
2 oz caster sugar
4 oz self-raising flour
1 oz cocoa powder
pinch of salt

1. Pre heat the oven to 180 C (gas mark 4, 350 F).
2. Cream the margarine and sugar together and beat until white.
3. Stir in the flour, salt and cocoa.
4. Roll into balls, and place on a greased baking tray. Flatten with a fork dipped in hot water.
5. Cook for approx 10 minutes in the middle of the oven.

Makes about 16 biscuits.

Honey Spice Cookies

8 oz self-raising flour
2 level teaspoons of mixed spice
4 oz margarine
4oz caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon of clear honey or softened thick honey
1 oz chopped mixed nuts

1. Pre heat the oven to 180 C (gas mark 4, 350 F).
2. Cream the margarine and sugar together and beat until light.
3. Beat in the honey and egg.
4. Stir in the flour, spice and nuts.
5. Roll into balls, and place onto a greased baking tray. Flatten with a fork dipped in hot water.
6. Bake for 7 – 10 minutes until golden.

Makes about 28 very yummy biscuits!

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