au bord de la mer - Christmas Day 2017

December 25th in Normandy dawned fresh and clear, a little bit breezy but no rain, so following our Christmas Day tradition we wrapped up warm and headed for the beach.

Fleur quickly palled up with an English family also out for a walk au bord de la mer and soon Merry Christmases were flying between us!

On the way back to the car I came across a beautiful ajonc (broom) shrub in full flower, a beautiful splash of bright yellow to brighten the day.

Time for lunch now.
Smoked salmon with cream cheese on freshly baked home made bread and maybe a glass of fizz, then there's a large bag of root veg waiting to be peeled ready for our traditional roast turkey dinner this evening.

Sending

love and best wishes to all our friends and family wherever

you are.

Merry Christmas!

Mosaic Monday # 66 - 'tis the season

But the Christmas tree is a tree of Fable

A Phoenix in Evergreen

And the world cannot change

Or chill what its Mysteries mean

To your Hearts and Eyes now.

The Christmas Tree, C. Day Lewis.

It was lovely to receive all your friendly get well messages last week, thank you so much.

However despite my best efforts I just couldn't shift that pesky cough so midweek I made an appointment with my General Practitioner to get it checked out.

Her diagnosis was bronchial asthma, the prescription 8 days of antibiotics, a discus inhaler, bronchial medicine, bed rest and a good book!

Little did she know that I've become an expert at doing exactly that recently.

By Saturday morning I was feeling a bit better and thought I'd do a little decorating so the SP brought the tree and just a couple of storage bins of decorations down from the attic, in the afternoon I took my time trimming it and decorating the mantelpiece.

Some favourite tree ornaments.

Olaf from Frozen is new in 2017,

the Redbird was a souvenir of our Hilton Head 2012 vacation,

the French wine waiter also from a HH vacation in 2009.

Merry Christmas was a gift;

 the primitive angel came home from a visit to Colonial Williamsburg;

the silver plated bird was also a gift;

the holly leaf & berry bauble, HH 2009.

library mantelpiece decorated in silver and white with a splash of red

I finished by hanging pair of simple wreaths by the front doors to welcome visitors and I'm thinking that's probably enough for now.

This will be our last Mosaic Monday of 2017 but we will begin again in the New Year on the 8th January 2018 (08/01/2018).

Normandy Life

An InLinkz Link-up

A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Joining Floss @ Troc, Broc & Recup for a Pause in Advent
and
Mary @ the little red house for Mosaic Monday

Celebrating 100,000 Normandy Life page views with some images and collages of Christmas past.

Wishing all my friends and followers a

very Merry Christmas

and

a Peaceful, Prosperous & Healthy New Year.

See you in 2013!

Home for Christmas.

Back home again after a wonderful time in the UK, although not all went to plan.
There was a bit of a hiccup when the Senior Partner needed to pay an emergency visit to the dentist because of a wobbly crown and a couple of things slipped off the agenda, but we thoroughly enjoyed everything else.
The ferry crossing on Thursday wasn't as bad as we had expected and we made it to our hotel without mishap.
On Saturday morning there was some snow on the ground but it didn't impede our onward journey to Hereford Cathedral for the Advent Market and Carols for Shoppers at midday.

Hereford Cathedral

We estimated that there were over a thousand souls gathered together inside this magnificent place of worship.
The Very Reverend Michael Tavinor, Dean of Hereford made us all welcome and informed us that in the ten years of Carols for Shoppers services this was the biggest congregation yet.

Life size wire mesh sculptures of the
Three Wise Men
part of a Nativity scene inside Hereford Cathedral

So many in fact that the overflow from the nave had filled the side aisles and the transept too!

The Hereford Church Singers opened the festivities by singing "Ding Dong Merrily On High" which was swiftly followed by the Congregational Carol "Once In Royal David's City".

We also sang "O Little Town Of Bethelem"; "Whilst Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night"; "O Come All Ye Faithfull"; "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear" and concluded with "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".
The  Hereford Church Singers and the Herefordshire Junior Singing Club also sang several lesser known Carols which were interspersed by Bible Readings recounting the story of Jesus' birth.

After the Carol Service we headed to Ledbury to the apartment that we had rented for two nights.

Here's where I digress a little, bear with me please!
I announced in this blog post in early January that my word for 2011 was "de-clutter" and that is why all of this

found it's way to here.

The St Michael's Hospice Charity Shop, conveniently located two floors beneath the apartment in Ledbury's Homend, I'd call that serendipity!

The comfortable apartment living room,
 complete with
a very pretty Christmas tree and a
challenging thought!

As there was no wifi available at the apartment I was unable to visit all my favourite blogs but just as soon as everything is back to normal around here, hopefully tomorrow at the latest, I'll be calling round to catch up with everyone during the final run up to Christmas Eve.
ho ho ho!!!

On The First Day Of Christmas.................

To coin a phrase it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here.
The Byers Choice Carolers are out and in fine voice and today, 6th December in honour of Old St Nick, the Santas arrived laden with sacks of toys and goodies to decorate the dining room mantlepiece.
More about them later in the week.

Like everyone else I have boxes and boxes of Christmas "stuff" in the attic, (not all of it is displayed every year) it's always a joy to unpack the boxes and take a nostalgic trip down memory lane as I decide what will be displayed where, whilst listening to Christmas music CD's.
Christmas Carols from Saint Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle is a particular favourite.

Each year I limit myself to buying just one new item to hang on the tree but when I saw the beautiful hand made, limited edition, 2011 Partridge Nest created by Vicki in her Sacred Yarn Room (ably assisted by her very good friend Mary) on her blog 2 Bags Full my heart did a little flip!

Then when I read that
 "The charitable portion of the proceeds from the sale of this nest will be donated to our local Ronald McDonald House. So many families can't be at home during the holidays because they have sick children in the hospital. These funds will be used to help make their Christmas a little brighter."

I wanted to buy one even more.

Sadly, all the nests that Vicki had created were already spoken for by the time I saw them and I resigned myself to waiting until Christmas 2012 for my Designer nest.
You can imagine how delighted I was when Vicki emailed me to say that one of the reserved nests had not been picked up and it was mine if I wanted it.
In keeping with the Pantomime season it felt like  "Cinders you shall go to the ball!"

The beautiful hand crafted Partridge Nest arrived today and I have spent a very pleasant afternoon fluffing my nest and finding the best place to display it, in all it's gorgeousness.
With the nest came a wonderful glazed pottery pear to sit in the centre of the nest and a partridge ornament to hang on the Christmas tree, these were both made by Susan Jenkins another talented friend of Vicki's.

Click here to find out more about Vicki's amazing hand made nests and perhaps get your name on the list for next year!
Now, if I could only get hold of those Williams Sonoma 12 Days Of Christmas plates...................

Linking this post to Bunny Jean's Wednesday Bunny Hop

Christmas Cakes and Foodie Friday.

Traditionally Christmas cakes in England are made in early October and fed weekly with brandy maturing nicely until two weeks before the big day when the marzipan & icing go on.
For many years my MIL enjoyed baking a Christmas cake as a special gift for us and, as tradition had it, would always cover the basic fruit cake with a thick layer of marzipan and then royal icing on top of that.
A small christmas tree, children playing, silver balls and all kinds of other cake decorations would cover the surface and a wide red ribbon was fixed in place around it.

DH & I hate marzipan and icing but never wanted to hurt her feelings and I don't think she ever knew, that we would remove every last bit before savouring the rich fruit cake beneath.


Readers of my blog will know that I was enjoying myself at our HHI home away from home in October which means that I was quite late with baking my cake this year.


Delia (Smith) to the rescue.


The December issue of my Woman & Home magazine was delivered early November and included recipes taken from Delia's new book "Delia's Happy Christmas".

Lo & behold! "The Last Minute Brandied Christmas Cake".

Funny thing is at Delia online the recipe is called Last Minute Sherry Mincemeat Cakebut whatever your choice of tipple this is a such an easy recipe to follow and produces an amazing looking cake.

After the festivities are over I'll report back if it tasted as good as it looks.

Thanks Delia.

In the late 1800's Woman & Home magazine was titled Woman at Home, here is their menu for Christmas Day and two more Victorian illustrations from my V&A Christmas List Book.

I'm joining Michael Lee @Designs by Gollum for Foodie Friday this week and am so looking forward to seeing all the amazing festive recipes and picking up some new ideas. Her blog already has so many wonderful treats to share, care to join us?