Happy New Year

It has been a year of ups and downs for us as I know it has been for a lot of the folks whose blogs I read so I am wishing all of us

" A very happy, healthy and love filled New Year and some wealth thrown in for good measure."
XXXXX

The third King made it just in the nick of time

King 3 showed up finally on Christmas Eve. The shepherds were off watching their flocks and never made it but they will be in attendance next year.

I wish all my blogging friends the merriest of Christmases and a Happy and Healthy New Year.

My first make with the Golden Syrup

Caramel Corn!

It has been a very long time since I had made any of this.  My husband likes it, even though he shouldn't as he is diabetic, so I thought I would give it a go.

A quick google for a recipe and after the grand opening of the Lyle's golden syrup, Voila!

I have managed to bag some of it up for later.  This was only half of what I made, the other tray was quickly eaten up by us both.

An irrational self indulgence

Last week I had the overwhelming desire for some good old fashioned English flapjack.  I know it differs from US flapjacks but not sure how as I have never had flapjacks knowingly.

Any way, I searched for recipes and they all called for Lyle's golden syrup.  Well, I could compensate, couldn't I?  What did I have to use instead.  I did not have corn syrup and have never tried it but I did have some molasses. I also had pancake syrup.

The recipes all called for quick oats too but I wanted to use up some rolled oats as I bought them and didn't like the porridge they made.

So in my infinite wisdom I made flapjack using the rolled oats, a mix of molasses and pancake syrup and the other required ingredients of brown sugar and butter (which I did have).

It smelt good but it did not taste so good and it didn't hold together.  It needed the quick oats and the Lyles golden syrup.

I went on Amazon and searched for it.

It was available at a price!  I small tin of it was nearly $10, two tins were $13 and I could have got 4 for $17.  My mind opted for the 4 tins as it was so much better value and decided against just one tin as it was way to much money.  Finally common sense prevailed, well almost lol, and I ordered 2 tins.  This was the equivalent of 10 UKP.

Yes 2 tins of golden syrup cost me ten flipping pounds!  Can any of my English blog friends tell me how much a tin costs nowadays please?

But, today, they finally arrived.  Bad weather had delayed the delivery process.  In order to justify my rashness I will be giving my good friend and neighbour one of them.

Anyway, here they are in all their glory and the tins are just the same as they were when I was a kid.  Such fond memories!

Good old English flapjack will be made for Christmas!  I have the correct oats too.

Where do the comments go???

I really enjoy writing my blogs and reading all my blog friend's blogs.  Sometimes I comment but not often and sometimes I get comments.

I always appreciate any one who has taken the time to comment and always publish them, (except the one offering escorts!).

But sometimes they just disappear!

Please know that if you have commented I have tried to publish.  The must be a far off cyber sight somewhere in the blogger sphere where these comments are hiding out.  Maybe it is somewhere near the tumble dryer lost socks place!

The nativity Scene and that cheeky Elf!

 I have not finished all the characters for the nativity scene but I have set it up anyway.  Next year it will be complete with the 3rd King and two shepherds.

Now as for that mischevious elf, he is having a whale of a time at our house.  I really think he needs his own elf on a shelf to keep an eye on him!  This morning he was found trying to hitch a lift on Santa himself!

Christmas preps are about done, cards all mailed, most of the food is bought and presents for the children are almost all bought.

Time to slow down a bit now and watch some TV and do some Christmas baking.

I succumbed

After my lamenting that I really just don't feel inclined to deck the house with Christmas things my husband and I had a chat and decided that as this may be our last Christmas in this house we should make the effort.  We decided no spending though, we would use what we had.  But, there is always a but, isn't there?  Our angel has disappeared, I couldn't find her in our Christmas totes in the workshop so I went to our localish Thrift store and got a lighted star topper for $1. It is a bit wobbly but it works.

The outside lights and big baubles went up on the front porch, even the white wire lighted reindeer made an appearance but this will be his last sadly as his lights on his head and antlers no longer work.  He has served us well over the years.

I strung the lights around the living room, hung up the sparkly stars and did some jiggery pokering and found space for the larger tree.

Elfie has been keeping a close eye on all the shenanigans and reporting back to Santa every night.  The snowman in the picture was one made by my stepson when he was little, we found it in his storage boxes after he was killed in a car crash nearly three years ago.  Although a bit worse for wear he comes out every Christmas now.

We are going to buy presents just for the children this year.  It has been a tough year financially for us and with the house sale falling through it left us a tad on the skint side.

We have lots off upcoming appointments coming up.  My husband has to have an MRI of his heart on Monday, then two days after Christmas he has to have his heart shocked (cardioversion) to try and get it back into regular rhythm to give him some short term relief.  This was supposed to be done on the 18th but they cancelled because they didn't have an anesthetist available. Then he has to go early in January for an echocardiogram chemical stress test to check for any further blockages and damage then in the middle of January he gets two ablation procedures.  Both atrial chambers are being worked on in a bid to stop the afib and the atrial flutter.  This is a four hour procedure under anaesthetic if they can get to it through his groin. They go in both sides.  If not then it will be open heart surgery.  Hoping for the former!

Then there are the usual appointments and follow ups so we will be doing a lot of travelling in the next few months.

Despite all of this we are really trying to get into the Christmas spirit this year and it is actually working.  Yay us!

Wishing the same for you all too.