Discharged at last!
I am back and so glad to be free from ward 9b. I am just cramming in this post between my Christmas chores, as you can imagine I am horribly behind on my preparations having wasted five days following an 'accident' on the ice and a case of concussion. I say 'accident' as I have my doubts about the accidental nature of my slip.
In my last post my shed door had been sabotaged and I was about to take my suspicions to the allotment committee when I suffered a nasty slip. I had been keeping my suspect (MP) under surveillance and had noted that as well as measuring up Colonel Jackson's old plot she had also moved her boundary flag stones on the other side of her patch after the Smithsons had dug up their potatoes and leveled the bed. I detailed all of this in a note along with an observation of Marjorie Pritchard reading up on the care of fruit trees in the local library. I had spied her whilst renewing a copy of Henrietta Madden Foxes fantastic novel Prideful Prudence. I didn't think she had seen me but I did see Dorothy Fitzpatrick and did warn her that her 'friend' was in my opinion a suspicious character. Anyway I had intended slipping my note to the committee in the allotment shop letterbox, after shielding my sprouts as best I could from the snow storm that was raging. I had my head down, watching my footing on the path, when something swooped out of the snow and across several plots with a rolling gait and a familiar aaron knit bobble hat. My feet flew from under me and the next thing I knew I was flat on my back and and my head was spinning. Out of the white flurry a figure loomed and Edna pulled me to my feet. Whoozy and wobbly I searched round for my note and any signs of my assailant but the snow had covered all evidence with an icy blanket and the note was gone.
Now, leaving all this nastiness aside, I am about to make some mince pies for the Christmas Carol concert at St Cuthbert's Home for the Elderly and Infirm - a captive audience - the least we can do is provide them with sweet treats having unleashed Cynthia Smithson-Watts to bray Silent Night etc at them for at least half an hour. So if you would like to try this at home (without Cynthia) then here is my Mince Pie recipe -
Best quality mincemeat
Four tablespoons of plain flour
1 ounce of butter
1 large tablespoon of peanut butter
2 tablespoons of soft brown sugar
icing sugar - a sprinkle
4 tablespoons of cold water
By tablespoons I mean heaped as much as you can!
In a glass bowl chop up the butter into small pieces, add the flour, add the sugar, add the peanut butter and using your fingers rub the mixture together until it is crumbly then add the cold water slowly and pat the mixture together to form a ball - Place this on a plate in the fridge for a while - then preheat the oven to about 180 - 200 - flour a surface and roll out the pastry ball - you can use jar lids to cut out the round shapes if you do not have proper pastry cutters - and construct your mince pies in greased tins by placing on the pastry bottom a dollop of mincemeat and a lid squeezing the edges of the lid and bottom together to seal.
Place them in the middle of the oven for twenty minutes.
When they are cool shake a sieve of icing sugar over the mince pies to dust in a christmassy fashion!
In my last post my shed door had been sabotaged and I was about to take my suspicions to the allotment committee when I suffered a nasty slip. I had been keeping my suspect (MP) under surveillance and had noted that as well as measuring up Colonel Jackson's old plot she had also moved her boundary flag stones on the other side of her patch after the Smithsons had dug up their potatoes and leveled the bed. I detailed all of this in a note along with an observation of Marjorie Pritchard reading up on the care of fruit trees in the local library. I had spied her whilst renewing a copy of Henrietta Madden Foxes fantastic novel Prideful Prudence. I didn't think she had seen me but I did see Dorothy Fitzpatrick and did warn her that her 'friend' was in my opinion a suspicious character. Anyway I had intended slipping my note to the committee in the allotment shop letterbox, after shielding my sprouts as best I could from the snow storm that was raging. I had my head down, watching my footing on the path, when something swooped out of the snow and across several plots with a rolling gait and a familiar aaron knit bobble hat. My feet flew from under me and the next thing I knew I was flat on my back and and my head was spinning. Out of the white flurry a figure loomed and Edna pulled me to my feet. Whoozy and wobbly I searched round for my note and any signs of my assailant but the snow had covered all evidence with an icy blanket and the note was gone.
Now, leaving all this nastiness aside, I am about to make some mince pies for the Christmas Carol concert at St Cuthbert's Home for the Elderly and Infirm - a captive audience - the least we can do is provide them with sweet treats having unleashed Cynthia Smithson-Watts to bray Silent Night etc at them for at least half an hour. So if you would like to try this at home (without Cynthia) then here is my Mince Pie recipe -
Best quality mincemeat
Four tablespoons of plain flour
1 ounce of butter
1 large tablespoon of peanut butter
2 tablespoons of soft brown sugar
icing sugar - a sprinkle
4 tablespoons of cold water
By tablespoons I mean heaped as much as you can!
In a glass bowl chop up the butter into small pieces, add the flour, add the sugar, add the peanut butter and using your fingers rub the mixture together until it is crumbly then add the cold water slowly and pat the mixture together to form a ball - Place this on a plate in the fridge for a while - then preheat the oven to about 180 - 200 - flour a surface and roll out the pastry ball - you can use jar lids to cut out the round shapes if you do not have proper pastry cutters - and construct your mince pies in greased tins by placing on the pastry bottom a dollop of mincemeat and a lid squeezing the edges of the lid and bottom together to seal.
Place them in the middle of the oven for twenty minutes.
When they are cool shake a sieve of icing sugar over the mince pies to dust in a christmassy fashion!
posted by Sarah Haynes at 9:31 am
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