T'was the week before Christmas

The last weekend before Christmas - it was slowly busy and relaxed here.  I worked on the book on Saturday and kept yesterday as a pottering around the house day. The rain poured down most of the day, but there was cricket on TV,  I had recorded Dr Findlay (naturally), and with knitting in my hands I was happy and content.  In the afternoon, I phoned the lovely Duck Herder and connected a voice to the blog.  It's very reassuring to me to have my idea of a person confirmed by a voice to voice chat.

With the exception of growing food, there is nothing more basic and simple than knitting (or crochet).  It has changed little over the years. It's still the gently, repetitive winding of yarn around two sticks that produces warm clothing or practical little items like tea cosies, dishcloths and baby wipes.

I am knitting for my Etsy shop.  Those above will go towards making gift packs of soap and a cotton cloth.  The green I'm working on now is a very soft organic cotton and I still have enough, in the green and natural colours, to make several cloths and tea cosies.  I'm using vintage needles that are lovely to knit with.  They were given to me by a friend's mother who can't knit anymore but wanted her needle collection to go to someone who would use them.  I am definitely using them and often think of her learning to knit with these needles way back in the 1930s.

Are you making ginger beer with me?  Here is my jar.  It's got tiny bubbles coming up in the mix and you can see them in the following photo around the outside of the mixture.

I added more ginger and sugar each day, stirred and covered it and left it to do its magic.  I'm hoping to bottle mine on Wednesday afternoon so it will have a couple of days to ferment on the bench in the bottle before we cool them down for drinking on Christmas day.  Take the cover off your jar and look at the mix.  Can you see any bubbles?  If so, your mix is fermenting and that's exactly what you want.  It should smell either of ginger or slightly of alcohol.  A bit of alcohol does develop in this and sometimes you can smell it at this stage.  But don't worry, it's a tiny amount and it's safe for the children to drink.  Make sure your spoon is scrupulously clean when you do your mixing, you only want the beneficial yeasts and bacteria in this.

I should have done this a month ago but I finally made our Christmas cake.  It's the "deliciously moist fruit cake" recipe from the old Australian Women's Weekly Cake Cookbook.  I've never made this one before but it's a real beauty.  Traditional Australian fruitcake is derived from the Irish and UK fruit cakes of old.  It's full of fruit and nuts and laced with brandy, sherry or whisky.  I soaked our fruit in some of the delicious Asbach brandy Hanno brought back from Germany with him.  When the cakes were out of the oven, I poured another quarter cup of brandy over the hot cakes to produce a moist delicious cake.  Hanno and I test tasted the little cake last night and it's one of the best I've even made and although a fruit cake can be kept for three months, I know these will be gone by next week.  

I hope this week will be a wonderful one for all of us.  Please don't undo all the good work you've done during the year by going nuts on your Christmas shopping.  I haven't been to the shops at all and we're making do with what we have here at home for our Christmas lunch.  Our pantry, freezer and stockpile are all full so it will be delicious and simple without any worry or mad rush.  What special things are you doing this week?