The gravel pathway to the church door was lit up, and (as usual) we were late, so in the cold December night air we could hear carols and then applause…

Inside, the hallway was glowing with candles and greenery, infused with the waft of the mulled wine slowly simmering away…

Tea-lights placed in every corner, wrapped in ivy…

This really marks the start of the festive season for us… the evening is packed with readings- I love “A Christmas Childhood” by Patrick Kavanagh!- music, carols and the high point every year is the hauntingly beautiful “O Holy Night”.

When we are all saturated with Yuletide delight, the mulled wine is served alongside trays piled high with mince pies, biscuits and sandwiches.

The church is glowing with candles and decorated so beautifully with holly, ivy and poinsettas. Our boys and little girl sat up there tonight, snuggled up in many warm layers, quiet and wide eyed…

this is what Christmas is all about.

And, even though the weather is rather inclement, there is nothing nicer if, like me, snuggling down in a warm bed with a little nursling, with the rain is drumming on the roof, is your idea of heaven!

But… we have plenty of food and plenty to do, and this morning when the sun came out we had a wander around our sodden garden… and a splash in the puddles…

The polytunnel was warm, and I came in with my pockets bulging with tomatoes, courgettes, RASPBERRIES!! (in late November!!!) and  a bunch of roses, geraniums and hebe for the table.

I have been trying to finish dolls and corsages for the “handmade weekend” next weekend;  I have a commission for a doll so I’m presently making her a head of hair and want to make her clothes tomorrow. And I’ve been working on a pattern for a weighted baby doll, trying to co-ordinate what is in my head and put it down on paper (and fabric!) So there are bits of dolls all over the place: here is one of my boxes of body-bits!!

And so to tell you more about our “handmade weekend”: well! Next weekend (last weekend in November) and the following weekend (first weekend in December) we are showcasing beautiful, handmade crafts and gifts made here in Ireland by independent crafts people- and truly have we a feast in store: dolls, patchwork and crochet blankets, cushions, corsages, felt, cards, decorations, soaps… to name a few and whatever else we find between here and next week! My mincemeat is made, ready for mince-pies, and I’ll start the mulled wine later in the week to ensure the Christmas aroma in time!

Hope to see you here, or if not, online from Thursday when I hope to have uploaded most of the delights… and delights they really are, unfortunately I won’t be able to provide the mince pies over the ‘net, but I’ll post a few pictures instead!!

Veggie still life

We have always had bats in the attic… my father spent a lot of his time calculating the possibility of [volume + weight of bat poo = ceiling collapsing in on top of us] (in the same way that he calculated how many guests would be at our wedding at home, approximation of how much they would eat, and as a result of calculations, three days before the wedding decided to dig out a new septic tank)

Our early memories are of bats flying in windows at dusk or once when my mother found one attached to clothes that had come in from the washing line, and nearly lost her life at thesight of the “mouse” attached to her sheets! So on Thursday last, we spent the day cooking with our organic vegetables from Beechlawn Farm, here in Ballinasloe (http://www.beechlawnfarm.org/) in anticipation of our “Bat-ty” friends getting together here before our Bat-Detection Walk.

Menu: (another three) Banana and chocolate breads, soda bread, vegetable soup and bacon and mushroom pasta (carbonara-like-delicious-obsessive-and-compulsive-food), pots and pots of tea, and the piece de resistance (However do you add those French dashes over the e??): non-alcoholic mulled wine- well….: mulled spiced fruit drink, might be more correct, a la (definitely need to figure out how to add the dashes) my friend Meabh- very fragrant and warming!
MULLED SPICED FRUIT DRINK

I put approx 1 litre of orange, apple and cranberry juice into my slow cooker, about 20 organic cloves, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 vanilla pod, 3 spoons of sugar, half a grated nutmeg (and chucked in 2 small halves that were too small to be grated anymore without grating my fingers-eeeww!!!!), turned it to “High” and let it cook all day.
By the evening it was (a funny colour, granted, but,) very aromatic and delicious- just the thing before we went out tramping around old laneways and forests with bat detectors in our hands, and listening to the wonderful Pat, the BatMan. The children had a ball, with torches in the dark, listening for hoots (owls) and clicks (bats) and anything else that dared make a sound. Truly a night to remember- thank you Pat and Tara!

Then Friday, after a cold autumn start, warmed up to feel like the last dash of summer, and we went down the boreen to the river…

                                                  (after a few hot scones we were on our way…)

                                                     …Through this beautifully crafted iron gate beside our house…….

… and they are off!…..

                  check out those lichens!!! Super-pure air down here (apart from the methane gas (from the cows, not us))

         The methane-gas offenders…

Finally! Summer has arrived… a tad late, but no matter! Baby Grace, boys, Pebbles (the handsome hound, above) and I went down the boreen for a walk in the afternoon, hoping for a delicious crop of blackberries. Didn’t come back with quite as many as I would have hoped for- but then again, Grace and Liam ate their body-weight in blackberries, so maybe that’s why I only ended up with a few…

…I picked some other gems along the way….

And then we came home to another batch of delicious Banana and Chocolate Bread, just as Fergal walked in the door (which necessitated a large pot of tea of course!!)

One of these days (maybe even today?) we are going to walk down to the bridge with the kiddies and my camera and photograph it in detail, for it’s the details like the old gate, autumn leaves and ancient walls that make it such a treat.

But before I go any further, here is the recipe for:

Banana and Chocolate Bread

(I use a loaf tin lined with greaseproof paper & preheat the oven to 160’C)

Needless to say I just turn on the Kenwood Mixture and start flinging the ingredients in… Queen of Finesse, thats Me)

Cream 1 packet (approx 125g) of unsalted butter (softened) with 125g caster sugar.

Break in one of 2 large eggs, mix completely, then break in the other egg. Mash 3 large over-ripe bananas and add to the mixture.

Add between 100-200g of chocolate-we favour a good milk chocolate (i.e. one with about 35% or 45% cocoa solids- can get this in Lidl) The more chocolate, we find the chewier and delicious (and, strangely, flatter) the cake is. (I’m getting light-headed at the thought!!)

Add 200g of self raising flour to all of this, then scrape the mixture into the tin and bake for about 50 mins- 1 hour. Then when it is cooled, turn it out, or else like what happens in our house, I’m taking it out of the oven, find “someone” (a.k.a. Fergal) has made a pot of tea then the resident savages start into it and demolish it, still hot and runny (be careful of the very hot chocolate!). 

Stores well for a good few days (and that’s why I made four for our “Bat Walk” tonight, and now I’ve only 1 left which I doubt will last till evening… I think I’ll have to crank up the mixer for another few loaves)

While I was out photographing the garden:

I decided to photograph our shop displays-I’m always putting these off because I think I need the light to be a certain way etc etc (procrastination) but anyway, I went and gave it a go, and was quite chuffed with the result. I want to do some more, set up specific things, but as I was doing it at speed while Grace was asleep (she loves helping/dementing me when I have the camera in my hand- takes twice as long) I didn’t get quite that far. But at least I’ve made a start… 

I’m off now to make up a spiced mulled fruit-wine for tonight, something warm and sweet and delicious to set us up for tramping around a wet, dark forest with a bat detector… oooh, I can’t wait!!!!!