Christmas in a Different Season

Hyde Park, Winter Wonderland - Ice sculpture display, -8 degrees C

The meteorologists are predicting a windy, slushy, UK Christmas day with a bit of white in the hills up north. So although it looks like a white Christmas is only on the cards, the approach to Christmas day will continue to be a bit different to the preparations in 42 degrees that Sydney is experiencing right now.

Charlie's Advent Calendar, Silent Night singing gingerbread tin,
Candle and a Costco Christmas village on a hall table

Family Tree - an all year touch stone

We put all our Christmas paraphernalia, apart from our stockings, into storage back in July so the search was on for decorations. M bought a train racing around a snowy village to the accompaniment of carols, luckily it had a volume button so the lights could be enjoyed without the tin whistle songs. I collected green, pink, purple, gold and teal baubles to hang on the tree. Willow wrapped the light pulls in the bathrooms with tinsel pipe cleaners and Petal claimed the odd numbers on the Chocolate Hotel Advent Calendar and lit the advent candle (we forgot to blow it out a couple of times and it burnt through a few too many days), the picture one was bought from a Christmas shop in the Cotswolds. Charlie had his own Advent calendar from the local pet store but didn't like the treats.  The Count down to Christmas was organised. I think we were all feeling a little anxious about how it would work out without any of our family around.

Kiwi presents have arrived - 4:30pm Dec 10

The ornament box from Leelee will
come in very handy!

Twig ball

Reindeer display

Christmas trees were sold at fruit and vege shops, special rural locations and at garden stores.  The garden shops had huge displays of Christmas cheer, every colour imaginable.  The pastel colours with white tinsel seem to be 'the' colours for 2013. Aylett Nursery on the St Albans orbital road had Santa in a grotto, mechanical Reindeer for sale and amazing twig ball stars covered in LEDs to hang in the bare trees - at £100 each they were regretfully left on the shelf.  We went to Scotsdale Nursery here in Cambridge to buy our tree.  They had hundreds of them all wrapped up in nylon nets.  One of each type (Norway fir, Blue Spruce and Nordmann Fir) and each size were on display for you to choose which one you wanted then the assistant de-netted one to check if we liked the shape - I felt so guilty about how difficult it would be to put the net back on if we didn't like it that I said yes to the first one! Afterwards we discovered that they have a plastic funnel that the tree is pushed through trunk first to wrap the stocking of net over.  We paid and the tree was delivered the following Wednesday.

Knowing that I had to post NZ and Aus parcels by the end of the first week of December, Christmas shopping started early. Nana was a great help as we wandered around Cambridge looking for the exact Christmas jumper Petal had described. Thanks to Fatface (a store - not Nana!) I found just what she was looking for and a good one for Willow.

Finally something handy for summer Christmas picnics

Make up your own and order

Postage was always going to be a bigger part of the budget allowed than the presents themselves but I think pressies are more about the process of picking something for the person rather than the value. Little and light were the guiding terms! Luckily the Talking Tees shop in Cambridge had a great selection of comments screen-printed onto cotton tees so the boys were taken care of early on, a little sweetie added to make it a little less boring.  It was difficult thinking and finding summer pressies for the Southerners when all was scarves, gloves and woolly slipper socks here. Sorry if you're one of those with the winter woollies - just put them away until July. In Marks and Spencers - food, they had great cooler bags - light, yep - little, can be after rolling! The guy at the checkout thought I was nuts buying so many. After spending a day or so wrapping everything I had to make a couple of trips to the post office.  Nana took the G's 40th and the Sydney pressies home but with Ma and Pa's Golden Wedding anniversary and K's birthday so close to the Christmas season I had to visit the PO fairly often.  I ended up having the same girl each time and she got quite friendly.

I have joined the Cambridge Philharmonic Society and am really enjoying singing in a choir that is 130 strong. A local charity asked us to sing the carols as a draw card for their Christmas fundraiser but M had his work do and Petal was feeling poorly so I didn't go. As a tribute to Benjamin Britten they decided to perform Peter Grimes as their Christmas piece. The choral parts were very tricksey but I think we only missed a couple of entries on the night, terrible to let the marvelous Tim Redmond down.  The orchestra, under his baton, is fabulous. One long term member of the chorus said that she thought over half of all the music teachers in town were in it. Even though the soloists were tremendous ( a few - Daniel Norman as Peter, Elisabeth Meister as Ellen and Mark Holland as Captain Balstrode) it still was a fairly morbid yarn for the season with Grime's(fisherman) three apprentices dying off one after the other and to stop brutal repercussions of the gossipping villagers (Chorus etc) Balstrode counselled Grimes to take his boat out beyond rescue and sink it.  The teacher, widow Ellen had hoped to marry him and was wailing mightily at the end with real tears!

Thai tea before Peter Grimes - Petal stayed home with Charlie

RevD came up from London and lucky G happened to fly in on time to take R's ticket (Going to Orlando for a conference was an extreme escape method!). G went to Kings with us the next night to hear carols from the King's Men, the brilliant trumpeter Alison Balsom and the Pipe organ with David Goode and Stephen Cleobury playing. It seemed strange that there were no Christmas decorations anywhere, I prefer the old custom at St John's of greening the Church throughout December until the unveiling of the nativity scene at Christmas Eve Mass.

Oxford st

Beginning the Ice sled ride, the pod swung out and tipped over

One evening we trained down to London to see the Regent and Oxford St lights.  There was also a Winter Wonderland funfair on in Hyde Park with Christmas markets, rides, an ice-skating rink and a couple of shows.  I got tickets for the Ice Palace, the freezing conditions inside made the London evening feel balmy. We enjoyed a delicious hot waffle and tried to work out all the German names on the rides. The girls got fantastic views of London from way at the top of the drop tower ride they went on - Petal was shouting for her Ventolin on the first drop but soon shared Willow's enthusiasm for the sensation of flying.

M had enough of a thrill going
down the escalators getting
to the tube station!

Long Drop

Walker Pipe organ at St John's
played beautifully by Simon

Vaulted stone roof - amazing acoustics

RevD organised a Bethlehem Mass this year at St John's. This means it is held at midnight - Bethlehem time which is 7:30 UK time. This is so families can come and Priests can get home at a reasonable hour for supper and sleep before early rising for stockings. On Sunday evening the church was packed with locals from all denominations at the Candlelight Carols. The Watford Mayor did one of the readings and I got to sing O Holy Night under a stone vaulted roof - very cool sound with pipe organ backing. Singing tucked away behind the organ, looking out over an old church full of candle light was an amazing experience. M recorded the Silent night in the Eve mass but not this one so it can remain perfect in my memory!

Carols by Candle light in St John's - Watford

The Nativity unveiled on Christmas Eve - I wonder where that cactus in the back corner came from?

 We had a Christmas Eve brekky with homemade crackers and the Southern Hemisphere pressies so they didn't have to traipse down to London. Thanks for all the gifts and funny comments on the cards - they bought family much closer.

Double sided wrap - spot the scarves
in church tomorrow

Instructions from Leelee for a U.S. pick up

Poss' scarves will be useful - an Arabic Bah humbug?
Too smiley. Granny's Da Vinci bridge has been solved!

and the gloves will be handy!

Charlie went and got the pressie from Nana
(that he snuck out of her bag just after she
bought it) and demanded a Chrissy play.

Our UK family, RevD and R, invited us to spend Christmas day with them. Thanks to their sense of fun, we have had a great time. We all went to Christmas Eve Mass with Bishop Norman officiating a service for another full Church. After Mass we had a supper of quiche and fruit mince pies. (I hunted high and low for Walker's ones but ended up having to order them online, the people from Inverness paid for next day delivery even though I had missed that screen, so we would get them by Christmas - best in the UK! Baker's Delight ones in Aus the only rivals).
http://www.walkersshortbread.com/uk/cakes-tarts/mincemeat/

Christmas day dawned bright and clear, the icy strips on windscreens and patches on the road were as close as it came to a white Christmas. We were all thinking of the hundreds of families in England with no electricity and flooded homes after the rotten storm came through and flooded rivers in Surrey.

R is keen for stocking openings to be a little later if the event is repeated in future.  He was woken by Neil Diamond's little drummer boy telling the household to 'Come, they told me par-up-u-pum-pum', very loudly.  In a home full of RevD's classical disks - it was a shock. Charlie certainly knew which was his and got stuck in. The teens sauntered down full of sleepy grins. For brekky we had warmed up savoury muffins and ginger bread men with our gingerbread coffee and hot choc. Then by 9:30 RevD and R were out the door and off to Church. Our excuse was that we couldn't all get through the shower in time and someone needed to stay home to put the Turkey in the oven.

Santa has been! How long will the girls manage to stretch out the stocking opening?
All wrapped this year because Petal was nosing around too early.
RevD left orders that the fire was to be burning brightly on his return - guess who was happy to comply.

Our summer Christmas feasts in NZ or Aus, are usually a buffét - a chicken platter with Leelee's stuffed eggs and a plain garden salad for immature taste buds, a cold sliced corned beef, potato salad, a spinach, pumpkin, beetroot and feta salad, a cold pasta salad, sometimes scotch eggs (with beef sausage mince!), potato gems and roast potatoes, a green bean, asparagus,almond and lemon dressing salad and others that magazines inspire, cherrios with toothpicks and a dipping sauce, platters of asparagus rolls, crisps, dips, cheesels for the kids to wear as rings, nuts, lollies and Roses chocolates. Dessert is usually a late tea after pressies and a swim in the togs Santa bought. Chocolate eclairs, Trifle, Brandy snaps, strawberries, cherries, Pavalova with a kiwifruit and passionfruit topping are laid out on the sideboard with ice cream pulled from the freezer as required.

A delicious spread thanks Rob

We only eat what we want to on Christmas day!

Our first winter Christmas feast made sense in the cold with a fire.  We managed to find strawberries from Egypt and Cherries from Chile and Brandy snaps from Fox foods so we were able to keep some of our usual feast traditions.  R introduced us to red cabbage with cinnamon and balslamic and brussel sprouts sauteed in butter with chestnuts and bread sauce(which sounds and looks pretty suspect but was delicious) the goose fat roast potatoes were perfect, as were the Parmesan roasted parsnip and leeks in cheese sauce. Peas and carrots were on hand for the less adventurous. Completing the feast were mini sausages wrapped in prosciutto, stuffing, gravy and the birds were moist and tender.  For tea we had dessert, too full for the Christmas puds so they(chocolate and brandied fruit) were kept for Boxing day. A Sainsbury Trifle was quickly consumed along with the fruit, brownies and brandy snaps.

After dinner we swapped gifts, watched the Queen's Christmas address and played a game of Cranium - R, Petal and I narrowly beat RevD, M and Willow. Petal's humming and R's blind drawing of a deckchair secured the win. RevD and I both played wonderful Patsys(AbFab) M drew a convincing double chin profile and Willow figured out what crapulous means - not the antonym of fabulous we think it should be.  Sherlock Cluedo will have to wait for the new year. A late supper of left overs, cheeseboard and a cheese pizza for Petal was grazed from as we sat and watched the Downton Abbey Christmas special. For Boxing day lunch R made a yummy celery soup with the help of Delia Smith. We may have to go easy on the eating for the next day or two or be charged extra weight on our holiday flights.

Humans and dogs at the Vicarage must have been very good

Charlie has emptied his stocking
Lulu is a bit confused about it all but managed to eat all of the treats from the boy's stockings. Chester played it very cool, moving from knee to couch to floor as the wrap piled up.

Santa bought books - Yeah!

This would be okay if it were Christmas charades - but no just a celebratory reindeer dance to work up an appetite.

Lulu's toy better not end up in your nest again Charles, she wasn't interested in the  Christmas socks - not smelly yet!
Charles is sporting his Christmas sweater - needed for chasing squirrels with Chester in the cold backyard

It was so good to be able to see all the Christmas fun at home via fbk, email and skype. Keep safe this summer break.

Reading Now: Willow gave me a biography about Wordsworth's and Coleridge's daughters who basically gave their lives to being their father's PAs and were good friends by Katie Waldegrave. Santa bought 'Not without you by Harriet Evan for a little light holiday reading. M gave me two books by Chantal Coady - The Chocolate Companion and Rococo, Mastering the Art of Chocolate which I am looking forward to flicking through as I nibble on the Lily O'Brien chochies R and RevD gave me.

Review of CPS 'Peter Grimes'

As Benjamin Britten’s centenary year comes to a close, Cambridge Philharmonic made sure it ended with a huge Big Bang and not a whimper.  Their production of his 1945 opera, Peter Grimes, was quite simply one of the most spellbinding evenings this reviewer has spent at West Road Concert Hall. A near-full house enjoyed a concert version on December 15 that went far beyond what you might expect from a static performance of a theatrical art form.

The 12 professional soloists (plus a non-singing boy) made dramatic entrances and exits and acted their operatic socks off. With barely room to squeeze past their music stands, they nevertheless managed to create a tangible 19th century Aldeburgh - the scene of this heart-rending and heart-stopping psychodrama.

Given the huge forces under the incredibly competent baton of Timothy Redmond, it is hard to know where to begin what will be a catalogue of praise. Britten’s wonderfully sinewy and sea-salty score was played with perfect balance and drama by an enhanced Cambridge Phil. Their playing, for instance, of the famous second Sea Interlude, the savage storm, was thunderously powerful with terrific booming brass and screeching strings. One could feel the Suffolk coast tearing away.

One of the really unexpected delights of this memorable evening was to see the orchestra full on as though they were an extra set of players. In usual circumstances the band is hidden away in the pit but here we could enjoy, nay marvel, at Britten’s genius for impressionistic orchestration – the way, for instance, the storm shimmered its way through the string section. Harp, viola, flute and percussion all had starring parts and did the score proud.

The soloists put all they had into an evening of such emotional tension that the audience seemed unable to move – not a cough or shuffle disturbed the dramatic pageant going on in front of us. Central to this was the tenor Daniel Norman as the eponymous fisherman. Seldom has this reviewer (a huge fan of this great work) seen a more powerful Grimes or one so suffused with such pent-up anger and frustration. His powerful tenor (sounding more like baritone) voice soared above the orchestra and the huge chorus standing at the back of the stage. His was a raw, visceral performance, one that for once made complete sense of the fisherman’s descent into madness by the end of the final act. It was simply mesmerizing.

But here was real strength in depth with pitch perfect performances by Elisabeth Meister as Ellen Orford, Mark Holland as an earthy Balstrode and Yvonne Howard playing the coquettish innkeeper ‘Auntie’. Her ‘nieces’ were beautifully sung by Kristy Swift and Christina Haldane. There were indeed no weak performances and every soloist gave it their all.

As Norman’s tormented Grimes carried his dead apprentice boy up through the auditorium, there was almost a palpable sense of shock. This is partly because we were so close to the action, but also because the singers, players and choir gave so much of themselves.

By the end of the opera, we all felt emotionally drained. There was a buzz in the audience that we had seen something utterly special; yes a great operatic masterpiece but also a production that had head and heart. What a way to celebrate a big 100!

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