Ironbridge, Shropshire, UK

We've been in England a whole week now. And we've been enjoying it immensely. These photos were from yesterday's excursion. The jaunt around town was followed by a soup and sandwich lunch and then a walk up the Wrekin in the rain. After tea and coffee we had a fish and chips/kebabs dinner. A fun day. I love these photos. They look so English!

jam-jams

107 sandwiches. That means 214 individual cookies. That doesn't include the "broken" ones.

In the past I have done this all myself. Sacrificial? Perhaps. But what is Christmas without jam-jams? The process includes mixing up the dough, of course, then refrigerating it for a few hours, then rolling, cutting, baking, and "jamming" with the jam of your choice before sandwiching. This done while they are still warm. They then need to sit in a sealed container for some time to soften. So, this year, I have a new mixer that easily handled the 9 cups of flour; I also have 3 willing children who are old enough to be of REAL help. So we did the work of rolling, etc. all the way up to the putting away in only 2 1/2 hours! Woo hoo! Happy family. Lots of good cookies.

Now we are settled in front of the hockey game (BTG said, "I don't want to miss Coach's Corner!) with nachos and sour cream, salsa and fresh guacamole. The Christmas tree is glowing gently beside us and the twinkling lights are...twinkling....in the kitchen. Pretty.

aren't they lovely?

They're going to hurt. But they'll look so nice with my bridesmaid's dress. (Did I mention that they'll hurt?) The kids didn't think that they really looked like me. "Do you like them?" asked Cai in a somewhat awed voice. He seemed satisfied with my answer in the negative. They might grow on me if I can manage to stay upright walking down the aisle.

Sailing, Sailing, over the Yard so White

It's a snowy and windy day. In fact the snow hasn't stopped since yesterday and the wind has without stopping shifted from an easterly direction yesterday to coming from the west today. And how it blows!

Inside, we are snug and warm. Sipping hot chocolate and tea in between working in various disordered corners of the house. The children have taken Daddy outside to "sail" and snowshoe. Daddy has been oh so willing. They didn't even ask me.

We put the tree up this weekend. Since we won't actually be here for Christmas we wanted to enjoy it as long as possible. It's more fun than thinking there's no point in putting up a tree since we won't be here. And it gave me an excuse to make pappaenate. ... Next will come jam-jams and nanaimo bars. Yum.

Before the tree though came some time surfing in the snow. I hear they made it all around the yard. K2 was proud to tell me that he stayed on the longest.

(In case you are now singing "sailing, sailing..." here are the lyrics to help you out. http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-song-lyrics/Sailing_Sailing.htm)