Petition to save all libraries in Oxfordshire

A very short post to ask you to spare a minute of your time to click through and sign the e-petition to save all of Oxfordshire's libraries. There are 43 in the county, and the council are proposing to stop funding 20 of them. Although currently 82% of library visits take place at the remaining 23 libraries, the small libraries are often important community centres and provide access to library services far more readily than if they were closed. It is proposed that they will be taken on by the government's Big Society scheme but as a librarian, and regular public library user, I honestly don't see how that will provide the same facilities and resources.

The petition is available here - unfortunately, you'll have to register to put your name down, but all you have to do is fill in your name and email address.

Please do spare a minute of your time if you can!

Snowman thank you or festive letter writing cards

A month or so ago I spotted some lovely The Snowman card making papers and a decoupage set. As I had really enjoyed the Forever Friends decoupage I did back in the summer, and given how much I love The Snowman, I couldn't resist getting them to turn into cards. As you can see from below, I went a bit wild and have made LOADS of cards. Too bad I had made all of my Christmas cards already, but I think they will do perfectly as thank you cards.

Mince pies

I am quite proud of my first ever batch of mince pies, particularly as they also happen to be vegan and gluten free. I used this recipe from the Butcher, Baker blog. I found the pastry a little difficult to work with, so was glad that I was only making mini pies rather than a large tart; I also found the pastry a little tough on eating, but I'm wondering about using the gluten-free baker's friend Xanthum gum, which is often added to make GF baking more fluffy. Still, they were devoured by K as much as me (with some brandy cream :) ) and they look so pretty!

Persephone secret santa

I mentioned a while ago here that my friend Claire from Paperback Reader was organising this year's Persephone Secret Santa. I wasn't able to participate myself so was very surprised when I recieved a package from the shop in the post! (I found out at lunchtime the other week when I was asking my fiance if I'd had any post, and he told me about the package, which led to a certain amount of confusion and worry on my part - I was /sure/ that I hadn't ordered anything from them!). It turned out that the extremely kind Frances from Nonsuch book had included me, saying:

"When I saw that you were not taking part in the Persephone Secret Santa, I asked Claire for your address. You not participating just seemed wrong! :) Hope you do not have this one. Merry Christmas!"

I was hugely touched by this kindness, especially as I now have one of the new books - The mystery of Blencarrow by Mrs Oliphant, which I think will be perfect Christmas reading. And, it was the first time that I've ever recieved anything giftwrapped from the shop - as you can see in the picture, I can't bear to unwrap it, so it is adorning our Christmas tree. I could tell what it was from the bookmark included.

The other Persephone related news is that Claire and I will be hosting a Persephone Reading Weekend at the end of February; the whole week was fun, but a little exhausting for the both of us, so we are limiting ourselves to a weekend this time. It'll be the same format as the previous reading weeks - you can read as many Persephone books as you like, post reviews and Persephone related posts, and we'll have a couple of quizzes and hopefully some prizes for our favourite posts. As I finished reading my way through the Persephone 90 (or rather 87 as it was then), with the exception of the Mrs Oliphant which I am going to savour over Christmas, during the last reading week, I am looking forward to rereading some of my favourites this time around.

Festively wrapped biscuits

It is a little early to start giving presents, but I had time at the weekend to make biscuits for the members of my teams and the peripatetic staff at work as a thank you for their hard work over the year. I got the lovely poinsettia decorate bags from Lakeland, which I think make the biscuits look particularly festive. The biscuits themselves are a new recipe to me, from Lindy Smith's Bake me I'm yours...cookie book, and are orange and cinnamon flavour. Everyone seems to have appreciated them so far!

Tuba carols

We had another festive outing this weekend, again to London, to participate in Tuba carols!

It's not something I've written much about on this blog, but I used to play the euphonium and baritone in various brass bands over a number of years (in fact, it was at a brass band event where I met K, and got to know him when I joined the band he was playing with). I had to give up 2 years ago when my stomach problems got particularly bad, but it is something that I miss dreadfully. Occasionally tho, I get the chance to join in a one-off event, so when I was emailed about Tuba Carols last week I couldn't resist persuading K to take me to London for the day to join in.

Tuba carols is a fairly long-standing event that resumed 3 years ago after a few years hiatus and basically involves tuba players turning up at St Paul's Cathedral on the second Sunday in December and playing carols for 1.5 hours. to raise money for charity, this year Barnardos. The term "tuba" is used rather loosely, it wasn't just orchestral tubas that were present. As I mentioned earlier, I have a euphonium and baritone (small tuba and tiny tuba shaped instruments), which is what we took along - I was the only baritone player, apart from a couple of German baritones. There was a tuba in F (usually tubas are in Eb or Bb), a couple of sousaphones (the sort of tuba that you wear (I now really really want one of those), and a couple of cimbassos (a strange sort of trombone tuba hybrid). There may have been a Wagnerian tuba too.

Here is a picture of the group that turned up, conducted by Patrick Harrild, principal tuba with the London Symphony Orchestra:



I of course took the opportunity to get my pink tinsel out:

It was quite chilly playing, even if the weather was warmer this weekend than it has been. So we had a much needed gingerbread latte afterwards :)

Advent Tea Party

It's become a bit of a tradition to have a tea-party at our flat to mark the start of advent. As Christmas approaches, people get increasingly busy, so it is nice to do something early on. Plus, it gives me an excuse to put the tree up early, and get started on some Christmas baking!
This year, it gave me an excuse to get out my new Snowman Christmas stand which is my Christmas present from my Dad (he kindly said I could have it a bit early)

The centrepiece of the tea was my Christmas tree made out of biscuits; unfortunately I ran out of time and didn't get to ice the points of the stars as I had intended, but it was much admired (and nobody wanted to disturb it to take a piece, so we are now left with an awful lot of biscuit!)
And here is the tea itself:
Lebkuchen, orange and cranberry buns, Christmas shortbread, and starry chocolate brownies. You'll be seeing these in close-up in a super-duper Christmas baking post that I have planned!

We had mulled wine, I wore my new Christmassy snowflake jumper dress, 10 people came, many bearing Christmas cards and other nice things (an ornament for our Christmas tree, chocolates, biscuits, more chocolate, and this FANTASTIC bag (I know it's still 3 weeks til Christmas, but I think this is probably my favourite present - it's for books, it's library-themed and it's pink and purple!)

Ken's gingerbread house

Last year, you may remember that my beloved made his first foray into gingerbread construction with a stable to house the shortbread nativity that I had made. This year, he was determined to make something bigger and better, and decided to make a traditional gingerbread house (since that has far more potential for decoration than a stable does!). We made the dough together last Thursday, but the baking, construction and decoration was all his work and I am hugely impressed with the results. The stained glass windows are made out of boiled sweets, and the roof is malted milk biscuits. The log pile is made out of chocolate fingers and it's all stuck together with several boxes of royal icing. He used some battery operated fairy lights to light the inside of the house and they can be switched on when it gets dark!


Given house prices in Oxford, I'm wondering if perhaps we should build a gingerbread house somewhere...

A wonderfully festive weekend

I could write a week of posts about the weekend I've just had, and in fact, I may well have to! It was a great start to the festive season, although I was almost glad to get back to work to have a break today.

On Saturday, I went to London, for a day out with Paperback Reader Claire. An incredibly efficient bus ride, spent listening to Christmas carols on my ipod got me to London 3/4 hour early, which meant I had a huge amount of time to browse the shelves in the Notting Hill Books and Comics exchange where we had planned to meet. I offloaded some of my unwanted books which meant I had £28 of credit to spend; I had, however to stop choosing books when I couldn't carry anymore. These are the things I picked up (crowned by the exquisite Persephone 90 which was a present from Claire) (she also gave me the new Nigella book, not pictured)

As you can see, I managed to snag several VMCs (including one I already had - K didn't check my shelves fast enough - but I passed it onto Claire), a book set in Cornwall by Jill Paton Walsh, two children's books set in the war (Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo, and Blitz Cat by Robert Westall), two children's books belonging to series of which I already have one - Emma's Island (Honor Arundel), Across the barricades (Joan Lingard), a lovely Eyewitness guide to Monet (for only £1!), The dig by John Preston which I've wanted to read for ages - a fictionalised account of the digging up of Sutton Hoo, Waterland by Graham Swift, which again I've wanted to read for ages due to its watery theme, a copy of Wish her safe at home by Stephan Benater which I was intrigued to read about on Rachel's blog (Claire also picked up a copy), a book from the Little Black Dress imprint to which I am completely addicted for easy reads (more about those another day I think), Monica Dicken's Kate and Emma which I've read before but don't own, Corsets to Camouflage by Kate Adie, ditto - and it's such an interesting popular book about women's history and their role in wars, and Full term which is the last book in a quartet which I've not come across before but is set in Oxford and for that, it interested me.

After that, we went and warmed up with drinks in Starbucks, before catching the tube down to Hoborn for some lunch, where I took this picture of our matching Persephone bags. Sadly we didn't have time to go to the shop on this occasion, but we did of course use our bags to carry them around!)

The main reason for our visit was a trip to see the stage production of Raymond Brigg's The Snowman. This was the third time I'd seen it, and it didn't disappoint - it translates beautifully to stage and is a really magical way to start Christmas. Claire said I could put up this picture; I apologise for the blurriness - I obviously had too much tomato soup!

Thanks Claire for lots of fun - it was a great day out! I think this post has quite enough in it so I will write about what K did in my absence tomorrow, and my advent tea party on Thursday.

Christmas cards 3 (preparing for Christmas 6)

Last week I showed pictures of my mini Christmas tree Christmas cards; this week I have some more special cross stitch Christmas cards which took quite a lot longer to make (each about a week), so are for EXTREMELY special people (I haven't quite decided who yet!).

One of the things I love most about Christmas is The Snowman - I think Raymond Briggs illustrations are wonderful, and I think the music from the film is absolutely brilliant - it is my piano music of choice at present (I would contemplate recording a podcast of me playing but my Walking in the air only just gets off the ground, and my Dance of the snowmen involves a lot of one-legged snowmen). I am particularly excited about the Snowman this week, as I love the stage show and I am going to see it this week for the third time!! I went originally in 2007 with my parents, found the excuse of taking K's nieces last year, and am happily accompanying Paperback Reader Claire this Saturday - she mentioned that she was booking tickets, I jokingly asked if I could come too, and she said yes, because her boyfriend didn't really fancy it. More about that on Monday I think, plus the book shopping and book exchanging that we will be up to at the same time!

Anyway, I spotted a kit on ebay to make 4 Snowman cross stitch Christmas cards, and I couldn't resist it as I thought it would be lovely to spend November stitching The Snowman. It was. and here they are - there is a slight modification from the kit in that I decided to stick the completed designs onto cards larger than the ones supplied; since I had spent so long making them (each took a week of evenings and a weekend afternoon). Here they are - I'm not sure if I can bear to part with them!



I have also made two Forever Friends Christmas cards - they come from a kit intended to be a Christmas decoration, but I decided I could get more mileage out of it as two Christmas cards for two of my close friends. I decided that a red card would make a good mount, and borrowed the idea of trimming the fabric with pinking shears and sticking it straight onto a card, rather than using an aperture card, from the Snowman designs.