Nollaig na mBan

I suppose that it's only over my married life that I've gradually discovered the rich tapestry of the church year in different traditions. I grew up in a very evangelical Presbyterian sub-culture at a time in Northern Ireland's Troubled history when looking out of your sub-culture was by no means the norm. So even Advent and Lent weren't part of my first spiritual language.

Epiphany is something I haven't quite known what to do with at all. For years I had already been collecting santons on many trips and holiday camp stints in France, and I adore the idea of ordinary folk in all their professions making their way to the creche alongside the shepherds and the angels and the kings.

Because Prince Charming now works for a French company, I did make a galette des rois last year and sent it in with him for his French colleagues. There was no point in making another one this year, with opportunities to share food together so much a thing of the near but still so distant past!

I think it was just last year as well that I first learned about Nollaig na mBan - celebrated in Ireland on 6th January. In her brilliant RTE article, Marion McGarry explains, "As a reward for their hard work over the Christmas season, it was a day off from all house work for women and traditional roles were supposed to be reversed in the home: men did the women’s work in the house while women rested and gathered together informally."

 "The custom was that women made social calls to the homes of their friends and neighbours and enjoyed tea and the last of the Christmas cake". Photo: George Marks/Getty Images

Epiphany obviously fell on a Wednesday this year, and we are never slow to celebrate anything at Hookery, and indeed what better way to rest and gather as women during a Pandemic than at your weekly crochet (and knitting) Zoom?! In a further stroke of serendipity there were only two small slices of my Christmas cake left, and it did feel nicely symbolic to be polishing those off on the last day of Christmas!

Now, it did turn out to be a significantly more exciting night than we had planned. We gather at 7.30pm, and this was pretty much the time at which the news from the Capitol started to filter through our virtual clouds. Two of our women are absolute news fiends and they were popping in and out with updates from Sky News and CNN. I ran down to the boys, the oldest of whom had just logged in to our church prayer meeting Zoom. 

So there we all were, some of us on this side of the Atlantic celebrating female friends and resting after turkeys and tinsel, some of us on the other side of the Atlantic no doubt even more riveted to your news channels. 

I have absolutely no right whatsoever to comment and won't. I just feel that we are all, political persuasions and all, connected intrinsically. Here in Northern Ireland it baffles me utterly that this is rejected. We are all connected in good times and Covid times and all ages. We have had a very difficult week of school announcements this week, that do not help us at all, and the one thing in my head is gratitude for a God of the ages, all ages.

So, in the "Ordinary" Time starting now after Epiphany, Twelfth Night, Women's Christmas, Little Christmas, and as we all move forward into whatever else this wide world will endure in the year ahead, here's John Donne, with his 1624 devotion on an emergent occasion.

'No Man is an Island' No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Olde English Version No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. MEDITATION XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions John Donne

Pumpkin Pie in a Glass

 

My crochet (and knitting and many other things) group, Hookery, has been meeting on Zoom since just before the Lockdown in Spring. We're all of us carers or vulnerable, or both, so the opportunity to continue in virtual togetherness has worked well. There are lots of advantages: reduced driving around and burning petrol, faraway folk being able to join in, and now and not very often again you can have something more alcoholic than tea! Last night we decided to have a party night with the optional components of suitable attire and pumpkin cocktails. I found this website, obviously from the US where the Great Pumpkin has its rightful place, and decided to follow some of its ingredients to recreate pumpkin pie in a glass. So here, with all credit to Eater website, is a rare recipe from fraise:

I carved out a very little pumpkin and steamed the flesh until it was soft.

While the pumpkin was steaming I whisked the white of one egg until it was stiff, and whisked in 2 dessert spoons of caster sugar until it was all the consistency of uncooked meringues. Then I whisked in half a teaspoon each of ground nutmeg and cinnamon.

I blended the pumpkin flesh with a generous dollop of maple syrup and enough apple juice to make the mixture drinkable but still very thick. You could stop right here, but I did admittedly add 25cl of spiced rum. (Other brands are surely available, but this is Prince Charming's bottle from the special cupboard.) I'm not at all a rum drinker, but it did go perfectly with the maple syrup and spices.

I kept the egg and pumpkin mixtures separately in the fridge while I scurried off to find a black dress and red lipstick for the first time in seven months. I lit my string of pumpkin lights, lit my little pumpkin, and assembled my cocktail with the pumpkin mixture oozing first into the glass, then the egg white mixture resting deliciously on top. I did have a straw, but ended up slurping it with a silver spoon. This is an incredible treat for pumpkin times, and would be a very lovely little dessert in cups or small glasses at the weekend. It tastes just like pumpkin pie, and since we're about to carve our two Great Pumpkins I think that's what I might just make next.

First weekend in September

Here is the Hurricane Tree. It's right outside the kitchen window, and above it's outside Mattman's bedroom window which is where we stood ? years ago when Hurricane Ophelia blew through, relatively kindly as it turned out. We thought we could track the strength of the storm by how bare the tree would get hour by hour. It didn't! So here is the tree in the first weekend of September. I imagine month by month bare is exactly what it will get. And I am really very happy to see the first few orange leaves and to feel that different coolness in the air and to hear the crisper rustling in the branches that whispers Autumn. Is it too early to get the pumpkins out?

I'm also very very very happy that my little pear tree has THREE pears this year. It has only ever had one pear per year, and that only twice. So this is a rich harvest indeed. I am very excited. I am less excited about the potential broccoli harvest. Mattman and I joined the home produce enthusiasm over Lockdown, but I have to admit that growing food has never been my success, and if we get one head of skinny broccoli, we will count ourselves lucky indeed.

And because of a blessing in my school's timetabling on Friday, Prince Charming and I got a walk all to ourselves on Friday, and it was sublime. A bright blue sky sort of a day with coast and tides and blackberries and muddy paths and languid cows and fields of corn. It was good to be right out of the city, after two weeks back in school with masks and visors and a circuitous one-way system, and to walk far and wide with lungs full of clean and healthy air.

And so, fine blogland folk, blessings on your September. Here's what I'll be at:

What I'm reading: Psalms; Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo; Lilies for Gretchen, finally.

What I'm making: a tartan mask for my Scotland loving about to be 80 years of age father; Cushla's Comfort, a blanket in a secret colour; the Hookery Shawl, which only advances by six rows a week at my Hookery Crochet group which has been meeting in Zoom for six months now.

What I'm doing: getting used to us all being back at school (see Psalm 91); still thinking about signing up for an online course, deadline this Thursday; outdoor swimming in Belfast Lough with Jordanstown Lough Swimmers, and wondering if I can keep that up into October...

Happy Autumn  (let's all be like trees flourishing in the house of the Lord, whether we're back there physically or not, and whether they grow out of our heads or not) x

 

Spring into summer, and then just back to Spring

 In terms of blog posts written since then, it wasn't very long ago at all that I was wondering about "autumn" as a verb, and you cleverly pointed out that "fall" and "spring" were indeed verbs.

 It is nonetheless two whole seasons ago. Must do better! And here are some photos from the last few weeks in Northern Ireland, the few weeks in the year when we wake up one unexpected morning to vast blue skies, temperatures warm enough to merit dragging out the suitcase with the barely worn summer clothes, and the firm belief that it could never rain again.

 You see, Spring in Northern Ireland springs straight into summer for a few weeks in May. Every year. Just at exactly the time when you need outdoor-craving boys to be indoor-revising boys. Not sure if Jo is smiling or begging in this shot. Five minutes more, and you oblige, because you don't really want to be an indoor-boy-curtailing-mother.

 So you wander round marvelling at all the colour, and all the heat, and all the sun. Rejoicing in the fact that the people who built the house were gardeners! Real gardeners, with a scheme and a plan and everything. We don't really have a plan. We just try to weed it all out as best we can, which doesn't admittedly amount to much effort on my part at all...

 Look at that sky. Blue. Ireland is mostly green, because of all the rain. But when it's not green, and therefore grey, it is very, very blue.

 So here we all are at the table. Inside. Books and files and pens and mind-maps. And tea. Door wide open for air! My sanity lies in the basket of small ends of things. Crocheting lots of little flowers to join lots of other people's little flowers to be joined into a little flower thing for our Knit in Public day at the start of June.

 Lots to look forward to- boys' exams start tomorrow, so obviously it has rained again, as revision season draws to an end, but at least the revision pain will end! A morning at Mossley Mill with Hookery for KIP, where we'll sit outside if the sun shines, and inside in the coffee shop if it doesn't! And maybe we'll still get glimpses of vast blue skies before the traditional downpours of July. The speck in this picture was a para-glider who had thrown himself from Knockagh Hill, just behind the tree. He served as a needed reminder that day that the feeling of falling off a hill can possibly be followed by the feeling of actually surviving and landing safe on the other side!

ps Thank you to everyone who did leave comments re Outside Tea in Lent. I have a little sachet of tea wending its way to  you all x

For Your Tomorrow...

 Now, let me make my poppy position clear. As with all else in Northern Ireland, it becomes as divisive as the way you pronounce the letter "h" or as the way you answer the question, "Where did you go to school?" With this year being the centenary of both the Somme and the Easter Rising, you can imagine which event was claimed by each set of hard-line defenders of culture, heritage and identity. And I'm not particularly interested in belonging to either one of them, thank you very much. I find this day and these rememberings just as painfully poignant as anyone else. I have, with my army childhood rooted in The Troubles, just as many reservations about our dealing with the past as the next forty-something Northern Irish native. As a mother, I work hard at discussing all of it with as much good sense and faith perspective as I can muster.

However, when our Hookery group was asked by the council to produce two installations to mark the Somme centenary in our local Mossley Mill and the council offices in Antrim, I did crochet my little heart out. Admittedly my thirteen poppies were but a small offering towards the 282 we needed to symbolise twice the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme. It was undeniably moving to watch the huge pile of individual poppies on the table come together into a collective whole, twice! All the different patterns and shades and textures becoming on vibrant flower, twice. For me it represented more even than the 420,000 individual lives lost in one huge and bloody whole. On a much smaller, but more hopeful, scale it depicted what our Hookery group is for me. Individual women coming together with their different ages, stages, worries, joys, stories, and forming one very warm, very lovely, very supportive whole.

Heather Boss' account of the poppies is over on the Hookery blog. The two pieces are called: For Your Tomorrow and They Gave Their Today. I am so sorry to all who have and to all who do and to all who will.  That we should live in such a world as this.

My friend, Niqi, and two lemon cakes

I have a very talented friend called Niqi. Only one her most recent accomplishments, meaning those accomplished in the last week, can be seen here. This is a shot from a week or so ago of Niqi working on said shawl. She is surrounded by some of my most recent works in on-going and interminable progress. In the time it has taken her to finish the shawl- completed yesterday just as I arrived for a well needed cuppa, I have made zero, none, absolutely nothing in the way of progress on any of them.

In the time that it has taken her to complete her shawl I have admittedly been away on my parents' annual holiday week. Six of us to be fed, managed and entertained. It was a harder week this week than the last two years. I have decided that the deciding factor is the fact that I am older!

When I arrived chez elle hier for a much needed cuppa, Niqi had bone china cuppas, a pot of Lady Grey, and a plate of Niqi's Non-Grandmother-In-Law's Crunchy Lemon Drizzle Cake. She got the recipe from the grandmother of an ex-boyfriend. This lady liked her so much, and Niqi liked her Crunchy Lemon Drizzle so much, that the lovely lady bestowed upon Niq the recipe. I don't know what happened to the ex-boyfriend. Maybe Niqi will tell us in a comment...

Anyway, Niqi told me the recipe yesterday because, when Niqi makes it, this is the best lemon drizzle cake that you will eat. And because she likes me. So I have this evening attempted Niqi's Non-Grandmother-In-Law's Crunchy Lemon Drizzle Cake. It is not going to be the best lemon drizzle cake you will eat. I think, in fact, that I can guarantee that you will not be eating it, and the non-eating will have nothing at all to do with geography.

Niqi says she doesn't time or skewer a cake. She listens. Now that should have been my warning sign. Only the truly accomplished can listen to a cake. In much the same way as only the truly accomplished whisper to a horse. (Niqi did do dog-whispering when training Blanco.) I cannot listen to a cake. When the cake stops making noises, Niqi says, it is cooked. I couldn't hear my cake over the fan oven, but when I took it out to have a listen the centre caved. So I baked it some more.

It is making noises now- it is hugely noisy now that all the lemon drizzle has gone on and through. And I can smell it now too. For me that is the sign that something is cooked. You can smell it. Excuse me then, as I must cut this rivetting post short and race back to the kitchen. Perhaps I shall brew some Lady Grey...

Taking the hump

 I know it's not Wednesday anymore- it's very nearly not even Thursday anymore in this Frozen North time zone! We are, however, mostly all advocates of Wednesday Hump Day in this house. 75% of us breathe a great big sigh of relief as we come back down the other side of the week towards the weekend. Not Jo. He has the not beloved violin class on Thursday, so he doesn't breathe his sigh of relief until end of play today!

In a great display of maternal support for my younger sun, I took myself off to our craft group last night, my own sigh of relief well in place. We had a special decoupage session led by one of our members who is a passionate advocate for all things napkin covered. Jo would have loved it: a beautiful brush, a pot of glue and lots of ripping and sticking. And tea. Shame about that old violin practice...

I did include it in my medley of family life. Lots of noise, two superheroes, an airplane for my aeronautical engineer, and berries. Our home on a Wednesday, and any other day of the week. Weekend, here we come!

Owed to Spring

Oh, I know. There were so many other things that I should have done on a totally gratuitous day off school today. At least four of you must be guts for garters with me in mind. And I didn't even show you the most incredible giveaway that Simone gave away to me last week. I'll use her photo because mine would never do it justice. I have it in my schoolbag for random acts of celebration. Thank you, Simone. I'm still delighting in its beauty.

I'm going to suggest that my gay (can I till use that word in that sense?) abandon of the to-do list is owed entirely to Spring. This is where I was today, instead of being efficient. There were lambs and daffodils and many, many balls of wool. I bought two- balls of wool. Now I have three little shamrocks all ready for tomorrow, when I shall look at my to-do list. Promise...

Views and fun

 This was sunrise over East Antrim yesterday morning as we left for our respective schools. Glorious. Stunning. Colour-filled light that was coming into our world. The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood.

 This was  lunch with a good friend today. It's exam week in our establishment which means half-days and a brief return to the halcyon days of having time to see people! That pate, folks; that pate is not the Giant's Causeway. That pate is worth tasting and it's worth coming to taste! Duck and orange, and the jelly on top is not a fat-based jelly, as Abel the French Moroccan owner-chef was at pains to tell us. Oh no, that jelly is proper fruit juice jelly. With slices of real oranges floating in its own nectar. La Table in Merville Garden Village, and here it is. Shame you can't hear the jazz or make out the legendary patisseries on the counter. That seat's yours...

And here we come to the most exciting one of all. This is Mags with her coffee buddy of Wednesday nights at Hookery. This is Darling Ricky. Retired when his Parkinson's became intrusive. Took up painting to fill his time, and donated anything he made to the Leprosy Mission with whom he and a small team from his church travel to the village of Hombolo, near Samaria, in Tanzania every Autumn.

Tonight his first city-centre exhibition opened, in the prestigious Engine Room no less. So here I am high on a night out of the house and one glass of wine and the sheer joy of seeing Richard Darling's work hung professionally on stark white walls instead of stepping over them to get to his sofa. His pictures show the rolling hills and fields of Northern Ireland; his homes and churches lean quirkily and protectively over the figures whose intricate stories he paints. His tight terrace houses display back yards of washing as if ceilings have been lifted from these private lives and we peek in. Through it all soars such a gentle love of humanity that it does take your breath away. Worth seeing, and worth coming to see!

Book Club

So, life must be getting back to something approaching normal, or at least settling in to a new normal, because I made it to my second book club all year. To be honest, the only reason I made it to either was because they both happened chez moi, but I'm getting there!

Not only was I there, but I had read the book as well! Goodness knows how many titles I've missed this year, but I'm glad I didn't miss this one. Now, I'm not generally a big reader of detective/thriller books, but last year one of you kind folk recommended Martin Edwards as a Lake District read, and we're hooked on that series now; now I fully expect to be hooked on the Back Road sequels too.

Like J. K. Rowling's Casual Vacancy this book revolves around a very well described cannon of characters. Unlike Casual Vacancy, however, it is not at all a waste of however long you spend reading it. In a more positive comparison, like Roasmunde Pilcher's Winter Solstice it has a house at the core of the setting that becomes as much a charcter as the people who move in and out of it. I like books with house you can nearly feel. Unlike Winter Solstice you don't feel the need to count the number of Belfast sinks, although you will end up obsessed with yellow roses.

The Back Road moves on from a very distressing opening chapter into some very intricate weaving of characters and plot. Deliberate red herrings will leave you nonplussed until the end, and the distress of the beginning blossoms into a clever twist. It's not Great Literature. My definition of Great Literature is a book that will open up your whole life to you. This is entertainment, not the whole plaire et instruire upon which my ingrained Moliere insists, but I'm becoming less of a book snob either as I get older or as holidays approach. Or both. Actually, the lure for these books for me is the relationship suspense. I only read on with the Edwards books to find out whether or not they've got themselves together. I turn out to be a sucker for a nice love story.

 A quick glimpse at the rest of the night. Book Club is all about the food and the wine ultimately, don't you think? We have some very clever folk in our little band. Themed food and drink most months, don't you know? So because the house in the book has a huge drinks party at one point, we obviously had to have lots and lots of canapes as well. You might even spot one sinister yellow rose in their midst.

And here are two of my partners in crime. I think my life would be not quite so much fun without these two characters. Apparently if you lend a book to someone you should take a picture of them with the book to remind you where it is. I wish I had done that with my very missing crochet books...

Top is Heather Boss. My one time Library boss, and now Hookery leader. She would like to state that her Agatha Christie, our summer read, is all her own. Below is Queen Niqi, domestic goddess who is quite aware that she is re-enacting a mugshot! The rest of us are borrowing Agathas from Helena. So, Helena, I have pictures of all of us and books will be returned!

Monday Thanks 763 - 787

I am very thankful for the fabulous weather we had last week. Lovely! It is today so dull that I have the lights on in the dining room to mark. Both my nice summer tops are now in the washing machine, ready to packed away for next May! Sandals are safe from wear and tear for another year! 

Speaking of marking, I am nearly half-way through, and feeling most relieved about that. Thank you for bloggistes' kind wishes x I am admittedly just over half way through my time to mark, so thank you for the impetus that working under pressure brings!

Thank you for the full house we had this whole weekend, and for all the hours we spent catching up with good folk. Thank you for food and wine and chocolate and all such delights. Thank you for princes who will go to the supermarket with child and bring back the goods.

Thank you indeed for children. Thank you for their health and vitality and creativity and fun. Thank you for their energy and inquisitiveness. I am sure that this pushing of the boundaries thing that we are struggling with just now is very normal and a sign of something constructive. Thank you for faith- being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see!

Thank you for the friends who help me to hold it all together. Who come down and sit beside me while I make the invites and send the email and create the facebook page! Who will drop everything and come to town with me just to keep me company in the buying of piano books! They know me so well! Thank you for groups of creative women who include me in their doings, and furnish me with things to look forward to- so thank you for Hookery's first birthday party on Wednesday, Book Club on Friday, and Creative Arts and Spirituality in September. I am blessed x