Second week of Advent

 I woke up on the second Sunday of Advent to see that it had rained in the night, apparently quite heavily. My phone showed rain predicted for much of the rest of the day, but I was able to go out for a short walk before breakfast. 

Later, I went to a local church service where the second Advent candle was lit. It was good to have an hour to focus on the real reasons for Advent. Afterwards there were a couple of Christmas craft stalls outside, where I bought some delicious-looking bakes and a couple of attractive crocheted decorations. 

By lunch-time it was raining in earnest, and continued doing so, steadily, for most of the afternoon. We had planned to go to one of the annual outdoor Christmas markets in the evening, but decided we would give it a miss this year. Even if it was not actually raining at the time, we thought the place would probably be very muddy. 

However, I did manage to write the rest of our Christmas cards. I then added all the addresses and stamps to the ones which needed to be posted. 

On Monday it was rainy again, but I went out at 7am in between showers. Before buying fruit etc from the local shops, I went to the local post office, and posted the 29 cards for the UK. 

In the afternoon, I went online and spent some time checking family wishlists and ordering Christmas gifts to be sent to them. 

On Tuesday I completed and ordered the family photobook I was making for one of our relatives. I had left it a bit late, but it said it would be delivered before Christmas.

On Wednesday I was going to do some baking in the morning, but for some reason I was extremely tired and unmotivated. It was raining or dull and overcast all day. I did order the last family Christmas presents, however, and made a start on our annual newsletter. But it felt rather dull, so I gave up, hoping to feel more inspired later in the week.

On Thursday, I made our Christmas puddings. Years ago, I followed an old family recipe every year, and it always came out well. But for quite some time now, it hasn't been possible to buy veggie suet (or any other kind of suet) in the supermarket. It wasn't a particularly healthy option anyway. But I didn't remember what I had done in previous years as an alternative. 

I looked in several of my recipe books, and online, and found the options overwhelming. I discovered a recipe using ordinary 'spread' which I had apparently adapted and used a few years ago.  I also realised that each recipe has different proportions of 'pudding' (ie cake) mixture and dried fruit.  So I decided to use the tried-and-tested family recipe, with Flora spread instead of suet, rubbed into the flour at the start. 

The eventual result, divided between my three usual pudding bowls, looked as pre-cooked Christmas pudding usually does: pale and rather gloopy. 

But after I had steamed them for a few hours, I could see that even the top one had set and turned the usual darker brown. 

I fed the cake, too, for the second time. 

In the evening, we watched the classic Christmas film 'White Christmas' which neither of us had ever seen before. We liked it very much.

On Friday, we went to Lidl, to make sure we had plenty of wet cat food to last us well into January. And we bought other things too, as one does... though nothing specifically Christmassy. 

On Saturday, I cleaned the house: dusting, changing the sheet and pillowcases, cleaning the bathrooms and mopping the floors are my usual Saturday chores. I also cleaned some of the windows which had become very dirty after the torrential rain earlier in the week. 

Richard went to check the dehumidifier on his boat, and discovered that a lot of water had got inside, presumably during the storms. So he spent some time using our little carpet shampooer, helped by our friend Sheila, to get most of it out. And he brought back some items to dry out. 

Thus ended the second week of Advent, in our household.