The Autumnal Christmas Chronicles Preamble thread

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Hi, and welcome to the Nigel Slater appreciation society Christmas Chronicles Premable thread.

The thread will start proper in late October where we begin our annual journey of reading the Christmas Chronicles in real time. It is a cosy, heartwarming event that one can dip in and out of as life allows. Think flickering candles, woodsmoke, delicious recipes, the odd home made tipple, and bucket loads of touching Nigel-esque anecdotes. It is a veritable Hyyge of a thread.

This thread is to see us through until that time. You will find me, like a squirell, checking on my store of candles at the back of the cupboard.

It's also worth noting that Nigel's new book; A Thousand Feasts is out on 26th September. (with a deliciously Autumnal cover)

Wishing you all the best for today @bimblesalong ❤️

Beautiful Autumn day up in in Northern Scotland. I'm off to garden.

Thanks for the Mr Fitzpatrick cordial recommendation. I've ordered 4 to try. It's exactly what I was looking for

Thanks also for the recipe link!

Huzzah and huge relief, sorted!! God bless the NHS taking DH to a country pub for a birthday lunch and to admire the autumn colours turning.

thanks for the ohms 🍁

Good news @Bimblesalong Have a lovely lunch.

Just been out for an afternoon walk with DH to our local park. Lovely autumn colours starting to develop, although the weather has been quite mild the past few days. The sun was out. ☀️ ☀️☀️

Glad to hear it went well @Bimblesalong and hope you have a great Birthday Pub Lunch with DH.

Lunch is a broccoli, romanesco and blue cheese soup, made last week but I always freeze a few extra portions for easy, nourishing 'instant' soup whenever we fancy it.

Using one of my cute autumn/winter pumpkin cocottes today! 😊

@Bimblesalong , so pleased your problem was resolved today, and hope you enjoyed your birthday lunch. @IClaudine have been meaning to send my sympathy on the loss of your beloved family friend, I have been thinking about you. @RainbowZebraWarrior have been thinking about you too, and hope you’re now feeling much better. And everyone who has said they’ve been having a difficult time, hope the warm thoughts from this friendly corner of the internet are reaching you. It’s been a beautiful day here today; yesterday it felt as if we’d gone straight from (a rather disappointing) summer into winter, but today it’s been a lovely autumn day, sunshine and dry crisp leaves to crunch through.

Pleased all went well today @Bimblesalong

@HappyDane that photo looks VVN!

@Bubblesbythesea thank you for your thoughts. I'm on the mend, though it's a slightly ongoing battle with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

I had a neighbour bump the whole side of my car last night. They knocked to let me know and assured me they would be back today to fix it (he's a mechanic) I couldn't quite settle today until he had been back, but it's all sorted now and been buffed out beautifully.

My Offering of Joy today is my Mum's gorgeous Blackcurrant Sage. It provides fabulous colour long into Autumn.

Happy Autumnal vibes to all.

That is gorgeous. One for my plant wish list!

I am off to buy A Thousand Feasts tomorrow. I might buy Toast too as I have never read it.

Glad the problem was resolved @RainbowZebraWarrior a pain to happen but a decent person to fix it.

it has been a VN afternoon. My meal was exquisitely autumnal - poached pears with cheese in a tart, with such rich flavours and tiny bits of waxy honeycomb to enrich the mouth feel and taste.

My book arrived, along with the st Eval calendar - I had bought a couple of packs of taper candles to unlock free postage - VN

the final VN touch is somewhat amusing! Since one side of the bosom doesn’t quite fit the bra since surgeries and I’m waiting on a proper fitting, I found a couple of lavender bags and popped them into the bra pocket to get the shape.

Gosh that sage photo has downloaded now RZW - wonderful!

New thread incoming...? Or did I miss it?

Evening all
@IClaudine so sorry to hear about DCat

@Bimblesalong I had my eyebrows tattooed about 5 years ago having lost them to alopecia, I made do with pencilling them on for years but this is SO much better.

@RainbowZebraWarrior that's amazing about Masterchef. I knew someone who was on it in the Loyd Grossman days, so exciting. Now I don't normally watch it because of the presenters but someone local and slightly known to us was on a while ago and won it, so we watched that series. We are going to a chef's table at the restaurant they opened afterwards soon, really looking forward to it.

I had a frustrating day yesterday, I injured my foot in the summer and it has limited my activity quite a bit but had been slowly getting better and I was doing more again. Then it twanged yesterday and I think I'm back to square 1, will have to see what the physio says but I have had to slow my walking right down again and my shoe choices are very limited. So I have had a quiet evening, watched Slow Horses while everyone else was out then Bake Off and House of Games with DD a bit later. Also dosing up with ibuprofen to reduce any inflammation.

Glad that everything went well today @Bimblesalong . Your meal looks wonderful! The lavender bags in the bra made me laugh in sympathy. For various reasons I opted not to have a reconstruction. After I'd had the operation, I was given a softie to put in my bra on the flat side. All well and good, except they only appeared to have one size of softie. It makes the flat side appear to be very curvaceous, perky and rounded. I really like the shape it gives me. The problem is my 'good' side - I am not particularly well endowed and what I do have went south years ago! So now I have invested in another softie to wear on the good side and even things up! 😂

I found that M&S do some sized prosthetics and the bras to put them in @Bimblesalong and @Confusedmeanderings . The only problem is that the nipple is way perkier than my real one so I have one pointing up and the other more down unless I'm careful about positioning 😂.

New thread here:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/christmas/5179837-the-autumnal-christmas-chronicles-preamble-thread-2-further-ramblings

@IngenTing I've seen your question and will answer on the new thread! 😊