The Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles Readalong 2025 - Part 3

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Hello all, and welcome to Part 3. We Continue our CC journey.

For anyone who has not already had the pleasure, the annual Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles read along is a real time annual MN tradition.

The Christmas Chronicles (Notes, stories and 100 essential recipes for midwinter) book began on 1st November.
We continue to read along and comment with the book which is set out in diary form. I will make a post each day (or let you know if there is no entry on a particular day)

For anyone new, it's a challenge to see of you can pick up the book as a bargain. Vinted has come up trumps in the past, as has ebay. A rare and precious charity shop find is always a bonus. Don't forget, you can also listen along to Nigel's dulcet tones via Audible.

So, welcome to old friends and new, and don't forget that reading by candle light is particularly enjoyable. Cire Trudon may be one of Nige's candles of choice, but it's somewhat pricey. We don't discriminate against other less expensive brands - even if they are NVN (Not Very Nigel)

Pull up a chair, light a candle, grab a cosy blanket and join in!

Good Morning gentle souls of the internet, this is a shameless woe is me post, I'm in bed with god know what, feel rough as hell, I broke a tooth on Sunday, appointment on Thursday, just hope I'm well enough to go, the apartment below my bedroom is having major renovation work done, the noise is something else so no quiet dozing for me and it's my Birthday😰DH had booked dinner out, even the thought of it makes me feel queasy.

Happy bloody Christmas😂

I had never heard of Dennis Severs house before this thread but I will definitely visit if I can. I sometimes get gaps in between meetings in London and I often bob into a museum or gallery for a bit of time. Need to get to the Foundling museum soon as I haven't been there for ages. The other thing I do between meetings in the city is go off and find some bit of Roman London. There's a surprisingly large amount just ticked away in courtyards and even in underground car parks. It's quite fascinating.

I hope all with lurgies are on the mend. People at work are dropping like flies - even though the team is fully remote and spread all over the country. This flu is everywhere!

I have brought my winter booster tea ice cubes to the front of the freezer to remind me to use them. No idea if they work but they have Nigelesque vibes and they make me feel like I am doing something positive to ward off the bugs.

Hard work circuit class this morning which included steps which we don't normally do. I am rather achy now! Ah well it's doing me good.

Oh bless you sweetheart @thebabessavedme Happy Birthday and I'm so sorry to hear about all of that. Hope you're feeling better soon, the work stops soon and you're well enough to get your tooth sorted. Sending gentle hugs.

I've done plenty of woe-is me-ing over on the other thread and it's made me feel a lot better to share. Hopefully all is sorted for some form of relaxation next week!

@PrizedPickledPopcorn I don't know what's going on, but the birds are going bonkers here too. I think everything is a bit mixed up. My apple tree is starting to bud! It only lost it's leaves a few weeks ago!!

Hope you enjoy your couple of days, and also hope you have some plans for when your Mum lands whereby you can escape for some respite.

@piscofrisco 35 Dark chocolate oranges! 🙈

It just occurred to me when checking out Nige's book for a recipe that I hadn't seen a thread about it this year - and now I've found you all 😁 Just finishing wrapping presents then will snuggle down and catch up!

35 dark chocolate oranges is the correct number, surely? Unless 36…

Looking at the Denis Sever’s house website made Spitalfields look very manageable. I don’t ever go to London, as it’s too big too busy too noisy and I get overwhelmed by working out what to do. Not helped by DH’s determined fast paced walks between the various attractions that leave me wiped out and him puzzled as to why I don’t look happy.

Spitalfields though…I could go to Spitalfields! Just a little piece of London…

Nigel is definitely reading this and saw Dennis Severs' house so decided to visit. Much like the rest of us except we mostly made a note for something to do next year 😂

Oh poor you @thebabessavedme, thats a lousy combination. I remember coming home from hospital to recuperate after encephalitis to my rented flat years ago and scaffolding appearing at the windows as major noisy building work started that's day. Hope you can celebrate your birthday another day and get better quickly.
Good news on the knee @RainbowZebraWarrior . Hopefully means the usual management of arthritis can continue.
Love the description of the tea @HannahDefoesChristmasHamper and your fabulous name 😂 Tea makes everything better.

My absolute dream house would be on Princelet Street in Spitalfields. There was one for sale a little while ago. It looked so beautiful.

I used to walk past the Dennis House to work
The streets round there were often used in tv/film sets old fashioned lampposts you see - unchanged period drama, you could tell if they had been over weekend because there was temporary block out paint on the yellow lines on the road.

Been in the house a few times.

Hope everyone feeling ill finds the medicine to recovery but sometimes it’s best just to let the body rest if you can.

I am writing cards with the teens this evening, wish me luck! The drama girls are chasing the youngster around he has to send them cards, there is much resistance to this, but he has a lovely selection of charity cards to choose from and a stack of chocolate coins, no excuse, no escape! He’ll be home soon.

Thanks for the new thread @RainbowZebraWarrior and love the rainbow Santa hat!!! I thought I'd avoided the lurgy but think it has finally got me today!!! Got massively behind with the last thread so will start again with this shiny new one. @piscofrisco dark chocolate oranges are definitely the best ones your pyramid sounds fabulous!!!

I need to catch up on the thread. I started a new job this week and my weekend was a busy one.
I went somewhere down the road and made a lovely Christmas table decoration with lots of green foliage, holly, berries, dried oranges etc etc and a red candle. it smells lovely! Actually I'll add a photo.

Took the children to see Santa as well which was nice.

Okay, it won't let me add a photo.

And mine!
perhaps we do a thread trip in the new year?!

so sort for all that are poorly or coping with builders. Or worse poorly AND coping with Builders. That is not the one .

what a great and wet day it’s been. I’ve been up to my knees in mud. Loved it 😁.
tonight’s task is to go through everything that has been delivered and sort it into which child it’s for.x I’ve been putting it off for two weeks and I can no longer get into the front room.

a small win-the Dr Texted me to say they had given me six months worth of my meds and it will be at the chemist tomorrow! Miracle!

@petitpasta I'm intrigued by your ice cubes (and, rather partial to ice!), what's in them?

@piscofrisco good news re. your meds - mine have apparently been approved & are showing as such for the chemo suite nurses...we'll see! No-one has a clue what to do about the random appointment 🤷‍♀️🙄.

Christmas performance at school tomorrow morning - not today, like I thought - so will be an early one for me.

I've spent a couple of hours browsing in town with dd1 this afternoon, with a small list to buy. Plan for a couple of hours quiet wrapping tomorrow, before I head to the local secondary to watch their performance with dd2 (who attends there).

Nvn at all really, but quite chill nonetheless.

@piscofrisco I've just sloped off upstairs to do exactly that - open all the parcels and work out what's what and even more important have I got similar numbers of things for each child. DD3 has her birthday this weekend which does not help.
DH asked me today what I would like for Christmas and I have literally no idea

I’ve lost a present (well two of the same presents) mini thermal paper printers so they can print out, well my idea is school revision flash card type things, no sniggering in the back row, in reality the house will be covered in daft stuff.

They must be somewhere. Must be.

It’s an incentive to have a sort out because crackers, mince pies and boxes of biscuits piled up in the studio is notverynigel, no space to swing a bar of monk’s blessed soap!

2 Oranges, 2 lemons (both peeled), about 80g of ginger, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 2 tbsp honey. Blitz it all in a blender then decant into ice cube trays and freeze. Add one to a cup of boiling water.

The cards are written!
He took it upon himself to write personal messages in each “if it’s just to X, from me what’s the point” - each friend who has roots in another country he has written merry Christmas in their native language and for those who speak more than two languages he’s done the full set, apart from Korean, that’s too difficult apparently- he’s more Nigel than me - perhaps he should take over my posts!

And he wonders why he has a gang of them following him around!

(he’s 15 by the way 15 going on Nigel)

Glad it's good news on the meds front - I would have happily sent you oestrogel in the post @piscofrisco! I've actually been told today to come off my HRT while they try to figure out what's going on with everything else - I'd only been on it about six weeks when I got covid and was having some side effects, so GP wants to check that isn't contributing. So I fully expect to be some sort of hormonal beast over Christmas.

I've spent the evening watching Jingle Bell Heist on Netflix (NVN but fun). Got a friend visiting tomorrow evening and staying over so have a bit of housework to get done tomorrow and want to make mince pies.

I’m going to do this
not this week

is it fresh turmeric

So strange. My 14 year old DD has literally just written out Christmas cards to her different Languages teachers tonight and her Ukrainian friends wishing them Merry Christmas in their own language. She's also been practicing in Japanese. I think Korean and Chinese end up all getting a little bit mashed up though.

Personally, I only ever managed to get the very basics in French, Italian, Spanish and Greek. I have never been fluent in anything other than Geordie!

Thank you @martha79 (Nigel! 😅) for sharing his post about Denis Severa house. Mere mortals are not allowed to take pictures inside, so it was great to see some from the house. Did anyone notice someone in comments mentioning documentary about the house?? It's called The house that wouldn't die. I have bookmarked it on youtube.

If Nigel is on thread, it's probably the least conspicuous user account ever. A bit like Charlie Chaplin who took a part in the Charlie Chaplin’s lookalike competition and came third. 😏

The collective thread visit to Severs house would be glorious. Imagine Nigel himself turning up?! 😂

Odd coincidence @RainbowZebraWarrior
Thing is my 15 year old ice king claims, claims, he doesn’t want to be ambushed with birthday cards/chocolate/Christmas cards from (3 in particular but new names seem to pop up weekly) the drama girls and then he does stuff like this! “You don’t help yourself you know” - oh to be young again (and he can swan around being Nigel because he has me & his dad attending to his every want and need - I mean it wasn’t him walking round village in rain trying to find charity Christmas cards that were suitable and chocolate coins was it? Not we just flourished our quill - he does have a (Harry Potter) quill and ink - reproducing multi-lingual personalised cards) - and he likes fancy bars of soap, a nip n the air, expensive jumpers and is a foodie - when he was four he was explaining to his soon to be primary school the raw ingredients of houmous (including tahini), and his brother drew an ice cream cone in school and added black dots (for the vanilla seeds none of your soft scoop walls for our pampered princes eh) I know it’s largely my fault but you don’t expect these details from your home kitchen to escape!

I have a free hour, H who has just finished work (he is WFH full time this week and it’s full on because he has two weeks off from Friday) is cooking up a chilli storm in kitchen for him and teens to eat next two nights (I don’t eat meat so beef chilli not my thing) - think it was because I said I would do falafel if he didn’t have time but that means soaking chickpeas overnight so I need to know (I love soaking beans they are pretty and peaceful in the water)

So not only am I chilling tonight all I have to do for dinner for next two nights is boil rice (I am happy with butternut squash soup for dinner but rest of house think that’s a starter)

So I will make soup tomorrow for me and do a jacket sweet potato. I would happily eat vegan most of the time.