Miscellaneous Monday

The 1st of November really seems to have brought with it the winter tonight! With the clocks going back an hour at the weekend, it was dark here by about 4.30 and that's only going to get worse in the next few weeks. There is a strong wind and on top of that, it's raining quite heavily. It really took all my enthusiasm to take the boys out to Monday club at church tonight after dinner! This weather just makes me want to hibernate in a cosy house! Thankfully my brother usually takes the boys home from club, so I didn't have to brave the elements a second time!

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Saturday's coffee morning seemed to go well. The children all loved the second-hand toy stall and the washable tattoos (which were cute little Bible themed tattoos). I sold a few cards and there was a lovely selection of cakes.

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Christmas stuff comes into the shops so early these days that I do my best to completely ignore it until November, so now I am allowing myself to think about it a bit more. I didn't quite make it to November before making my first batch of these little beauties though:

I made them on Saturday night, which was almost November. I have been known to make up my own mincemeat for them (a Nigella recipe, of course) but I'm not sure if I will this year or not. 

I don't tend to make these wheat-free, as Calum doesn't like raisins, although I did last year as I was on a wheat-free diet to see if it helped Alasdair's skin. I'm still working on perfecting my wheat-free pastry.

Traditionally, I try and make my Christmas cake on one of the first couple of weeks in November, to give it time to mature. I made two last year, one wheat-free and one normal. My wheat-free one was far too crumbly though, so it needs a bit of fine tuning. Calum won't eat it, but Alasdair might - he loves raisins!

Out of those little pies above, there are not too many left!

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Finally, here's a wee clip to show what Alasdair has been perfecting over the last week:

Gaelic word(s) [three of them!] of the day: 

coisich (cosh-eech) - walk

fliuch (fl-yooch) - wet

gaothach (gi-hach) - windy

All ending with the Scottish ch sound, and the i sound in gi-hach is as in is.

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