The aroma of Christmas is all around. Finally.

Despite the distinct lack of general Christmasyness at home; no decorations, tree, or twinkly lights and the cards aren't even up, there is a whiff of Christmas in the air.  Much of the whiff is down to the 5kg chunk of smoked gammon which has been cooking for nearly five hours in a coating of ground star anise, corriander seeds, dried chilli and basted with a dangerously sticky mixture of hoisin sauce and honey.  It smells wonderful and despite the inch thick patina of burnt black stuff around the edges of the tin, I think that all is well.  The meat has been transferred to a dish which hasn't had the lethally burny combination of honey and hoisin pooling in it's base for four hours and I do hope that it hasn't been tainted.  To add to the distinct aroma of the season is a pot of spicy red cabbage with apple bubbling away, I love this vegetable accompaniment and think that it will cut through the sweetness of the gammon nicely.  Very soon I hope to be able to detect the distinctly satisfying bouquet of crispy jacket potato skins as well.  There is a ruby red pot of cranberry sauce sitting in the fridge ready to go to mum's to glam up her turkey tomorrow.  I have wrapped presents for Peter and my parents and will no doubt be roped (or ribboned) in to do Peter's wrapping too.


My Etsy sales have finally dried up for the holidays and I have a great hope that once everyone has opened their gifts where ever they are in the world, all of my lovely customers will come flocking back to treat themselves to the gifts they didn't indulge in during December.

I shall finish off this Chrismas Eve with a very nice and peaceful green Treasury which features my Fresh and Green notecard, it's nice to have a break from all of the reds and snowflakery.

A Happy Christmas to you all!

Winter Greens by GMA Jewellery

Christmas is coming and I haven't sent (or written) a single card....

The roller-coaster ride towards Christmas continues!  I've started to think about sending out some cards, which is actually pretty early for me as anyone who knows me knows that I am seriously laid back about Christmas and rather wish that it would all go away.....considering I make and sell cards, I am alarmingly reticent about using them for myself.  This year I had my first cards printed and they haven't sold very well (apart from 20 Snowmen to a lovely friend) so I may as well use the rest of them myself, I don't want them hanging around until next year.

There continues to be a lovely wealth of seasonal Treasuries on Etsy featuring my work, and with the brilliant new Treasury ap from those clever people at Craftcult I really don't have any excuse not to post them as frequently as I used to!  Here's the latest one and it's UK themed one and is really rather jolly!

(Click directly on each image to see the full details in it's Etsy Shop)

Perfect for the man in your life.

My Crosby Steps print has been selected as a great gift for a difficult to buy for man!  I can't possibly disagree with that, so thanks to Ron over at Etsy for picking my print for his rarefied selection!

Postage is still good to the UK in time for Christmas, so if you have a man who needs a gift, now's your chance!

The snow's all gone now here in Manchester and it's much warmer but a bit dreary really after all of the beautiful crispy whiteness.  Never mind, I'm sure it will be back soon.


We're off to Lincoln in a bit to shoot Mr Robeson again.......

Ministry of Silly Christmas cards are here!

Here's another Christmas card to keep my snowmen happy!

Ministry of Silly Christmas - by Eyeshoot Photography

This was lunch on Xmas Day...

Christmas lunch was totally untraditional this year, I've never cooked a turkey (my mother always does on one of the holiday days, in fact, this year today is turkey day).  I cooked the beef and the pudding on Xmas Eve and had the ingredients for the nibbles all ready to go on Xmas day and just sort of made them up at the appropriate time.

Here's what we ate to start with nibbles to go with out fizz:

Prawns in my special made up marinade (coriander, fish sauce, ginger, garlic, red chilli, sugar), smoked salmon with horseradish creme fraiche on blinis, smoked salmon pate also on blinis, Dolcelate and Blackstick's Blue on chickory leaves.

 

For our main - shin of beef casserole with herby mustard dumplings, sprouts with bacon, cabbage and cavolo nero and squashed new potatoes.

Pudding - Chocolate and chestnut terrine - seriously rich and rather nice!