I set my life around the seasons, and for me, each season has something new to do, appreciate or take part in. Now that the leaves are starting to turn, the nights are getting chilly; (must must must take the myrtle inside!) all thoughts have turned inwards and towards the inevitable Christmas, dark days and long dark nights, cold frosty mornings, ice and, of course socks. I am warding off my also-inevitable bout of chillblains with lots of Deep-Heat and slippers, keeping off cold floors, and spending time in the kitchen in front of a radiatingly-warm oven.

In the last few days alone I've created the most sumptuous creations, from rock buns, to a Blue Peter lemon cake, Chelsea buns and now, the pièce de résistance this year's xmas cake! Woot. I should've, in theory, made this a few weeks ago. But life being as life is, I haven't felt inclined until today. Making Christmas cakes is a beautiful thing, the recipe is rich and different to normal cakes, so much fruit to play with. This recipe is a tried-and-tested recipe, having been used at some point in our family for christenings and also xmas cakes, and this summer it was the recipe for our wedding cakes. It's wrapped in two cereal boxes because we were out of newspaper - I'm glad I thought of that!

I have bought at least 2 xmas presents already, just because I'm going to be working on xmas eve, so the ritual walk through the christmassy-infested streets of BigLocalCity on xmas eve will be out all together. I guess that is all for now, more things later :)