Sunday 5th December 2021 - Making a Start, Private Dining and Itching

On Wednesday, I made a start on 2022’s vegetables by sowing onion seeds in a pot. Since we started growing from seed, we have had some wonderful disease free onions which have kept well. This is more than can be said for the onion sets planted in the past which have had various problems, in particular neck rot. I have also made a start on food for Christmas by making a pudding using a recipe from a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Household Management, printed in 1923 and passed on to me by Peter’s mum. The book has several Christmas pudding options, but we like the recipe which results in a lighter, but still traditional, pudding which is not too heavy to eat after a full roast.

On Friday, Overstrand WI had its Christmas lunch at the Sea Marge. When members first talked about where we should go, I had reservations about going somewhere, where we would be mixing with other groups, as we had done in the past at the Cliftonville Hotel in Cromer. However, the Sea Marge offered us a private dining room, which was perfect and with the staff wearing masks it was just about as safe an environment as could be achieved for our small group of nine, enabling us to relax and enjoy our lunch, and of course have a good old natter.

I have been itching (not literally!) to get out in the garden. Now that all the leaves, bar a few on the top branches of our apple tree, have either fallen, or been blown off by the winds, I have been looking for the right window of weather to get out and clear the leaves from around the plants under the fruit trees. It has been frustrating, as it has either been too wet or too windy but after seeing this morning’s sunshine, all thoughts of writing Christmas cards were abandoned and I was out there. On my hands and knees, I carefully cleared the leaves under the trees taking care not to damage the plants, some of which were buried beneath the foliage. Of course, one thing leads to another and before it clouded over and the wind picked up, I trimmed some plants, tidied around the raspberry canes and raked a section of leaf strewn lawn. A productive morning – the garden looks better and I am no longer itching! Today’s photo is of one of our cyclamens. Some may think white flowers are a bit uninteresting, especially as cyclamens come in so many different shades of red and pink, but coupled with the variegated leaves, it think this specimen is particularly striking to the eye.