Upon a Winters Night

It's Christmas Eve - Merry Christmas!

We've had a very busy month. It's been extremely wet, but luckily on a few important dates it didn't rain so it's been a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas. We had our usual trip to Oxford and I had some delicious tofu Singapore noodles in the Gloucester Green street market.

Then bought a few pressies at the Christmas Market before having a cuppa in the Covered Market - visiting some of my favourite places in the City.

The beautiful Elisabeth Convent (Belarus) convent - I should have bought more there

Back in Hungerford we saw Will Young (local singer) switch on our lovely Christmas lights and enjoyed the Christmas Extravaganza, including being in the lantern parade - this year we made the HAHA lanterns in the shape of snails.

 

Somebody paid me £4 for mine at the end of the parade! I gave it to The Big Issue seller.

Kerry's is now residing on her plot - although it's a skeleton again because the rain removed all the paper.
We managed to avoid rain at the Newbury lantern parade - huge compared to the Hungerford one, but we're hoping ours will grow and more people join in in future years.

It's been a very wet Autumn/Winter so far.

 

That's not the allotment. It's the River Kennet in Hungerford which is very full and fast-flowing at the moment. We did actually visit the plot yesterday and it was very soggy, although it was a crisp clear blue sky day. We only visited to pull some carrots for our, now traditional, carrot lox which we'll have on Christmas Day. We have our big Christmas meal late this evening.

Here's the latest addition to our Christmas tree. Unfortunately we had to buy sprouts but we may get some from the plot for another meal this Christmas.

We had lovely visits to family and lots of shopping trips. And this is a photo from our window as the sun set at the end of the shortest day of 2019. Hooray, we're on the way back up now - but I wouldn't mind a bit of snow before Christmas holiday is over (or maybe just at the end of the holiday so I can't drive to work)!

Here's a lovely version of this song performed by Cara Dillon. Enjoy and Happy Christmas!

Face the Crowd

Hungerford was at its busiest and best again yesterday - for Hungerford Food Festival.

HAHA had our usual spot upstairs in the corner of the Town Hall room as well as having a display on the landing.

This year, we were offering free samples of makes & bakes containing veg - it was a great addition to the stand as visitors stayed talking for longer while they tasted things with unexpected ingredients! Examples were Chocolate Aubergine brownies, Parsnip, Carrot and Orange cake and, my favourite of the unusual bakes, the Celeriac  & Lemon flapjack. Ted, Liz and Kerry even managed to win prizes in the cookery competitions for their offerings - that's how tasty they were!

Kerry's Cheese and Chive scones and Jamie's Carrot Lox (vegan smoked salmon) provided the savoury choice and Karen's Ginger, Lemon and Marrow jam was very popular. Elderflower cordial and Rhubarb cordial provided delicious refreshment. Here we are in our fancy HAHA aprons.

Downstairs, the Corn Exchange was so busy that they had to restrict entry for a while so that people could actually move round the hall.

But there was lots going on outside too.

We had a delicious wood-fired pizza when I took a break from the stand.

Such fun seeing food stalls lining the High Street. And the smells were very tempting!

I bought some tasty cheeses, an almondy croissant and some Oak-smoked Chilli oil and then back up to our stand for a few more hours. We were giving away dried bay leaves and wildflower seeds as well as the recipes - everyone definitely likes a freebie!

And at the end of the afternoon, we accepted donations for the veg. Of course, I came home with plenty - some was ours but other stuff I swapped - hooray! Now I have a butternut squash. And I have a beautiful bunch of dahlias which have done so well on the allotment this year.

I'm on annual leave today to recover. Using Ivan's enormous celery (which is very green and full of flavour) and a few of our carrots and shallots I've just made some soup, with added turmeric. 

I blitzed the carrots after removing the celery - it would have been too stringy as well as a bit sharp.

It's very tasty and should cover a couple of lunches even though I couldn't resist a bowlful of it whilst writing this. The whole flat smells of celery - delicious!

So that's this year's events finished - just normal ones like skittles and workdays now until next year. Oh, and of course we've got the plots to look after!

The song title is provided by Beady Eye.

O Come O Come Emmanuel

Ooh, nearly time! Merry Christmas!

We had a little visit to the plot yesterday, just to pick carrots (again). This time for making carrot 'lox' for Boxing Day lunch. Lox is smoked salmon, but the veggie alternative is delicious. The washed carrots are baked in salt for about an hour and a half - this is the closest we're going to get to snow this Christmas!

Now the thinly sliced carrots will marinate for a couple of days in liquid smoke, oil and wine vinegar.

Our allotment plots are looking weedy, wet and unloved. Perhaps we'll get a chance to tidy it up during the Christmas break... The weather has turned unseasonably mild but it's very damp so not great for working the plots or for photographs, but I thought this curry plant looked quite pretty with the water droplets on it.

We had a great evening out last night for the HAHA committee Christmas meal. Such a lovely, fun group of people who we wouldn't have met if not for the allotment.

I hope you like this Sixpence None the Richer version of  'O Come O Come Emmanuel'. I love it. MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS, see you the other side :-)