Farewell 2009, hey there 2010!

I don't particularly like the misty eyed, summing up of the year stuff that goes on in the media this time of year, nor the setting of resolutions that just get broken by the 10th January. New Year can end up being maudlin, disappointing and lonely for so many people. It's only an arbitrary date in the calendar. I prefer the pagan idea of New Year actually being at Hallowe'en seems to make more sense to have new year then, as the winter sets in. Or be like the Romans and have new year in March as spring begins. I also like Chinese New Year, it's always so colourful and joyful. Most of this year will be Chinese year of the Tiger, and I was born in a tiger year which is cool.

I chose the picture above to sum up 2009 for me. It's cherry blossom, so of course relates to Japan and my wonderful holiday there. The blossom in fact was photographed on my mobile phone in St James' Park London. 2009 may, indeed I hope be, the last full year I spend living in London as Jase and I are looking to move out of London in 2010. I also think that cherry blossom is hopeful and 2009 has been a difficult year in some ways but a wonderful year in others. With out hope I wouldn't have enjoyed the wonderful times.

So here's to more wonderful times in 2010!

Merry Christmas

Well it's Christmas Eve, Father Christmas is making his way around the world and can be tracked by the US military on the NORAD website I love the fact that Santa is officially 100 times faster than the Japanese bullet train. Now that is fast! Lovely scene of the sleigh traveling past Fuji-San.

My Christmas Eve has been quiet. This morning I went into town to collect some last minute Christmas essentials like beef dripping for our Yorkshire puds. We are having roast beef (sirloin roast) for Christmas dinner. I've made braised red cabbage to go with it and sorted out the taters and parsnips ready to be roasted tomorrow. So organised this year!

I just wanted to wish everyone who reads my blog a very merry Christmas I hope you all have a fabulous festive few days!

Saturday before Christmas

Well, it's the Saturday before Christmas. Things are getting quite festive, particularly with the snow we had earlier in the week. Rather disappointingly though Wimbledon didn't get any snow that settled, though just a little way south, west and east they had loads! It really didn't seem fair. But here is a picture from last year's snow in Edinburgh.


I've had a quiet week, feeling a lot better than I did say 10 days ago. I am even planning a return to work towards the end of January which is very positive. I shall write some more about that and my CBT later.

Cherry bun recipe

I have been doing some more baking for Christmas, today cherry buns. I think that they're actually quite Christmassy because of the cherries and almonds that go into them. They have the slight taste of marzipan, which is something I only ever really eat at Christmas. I am going to make a large traditional Scottish cherry cake for Christmas instead of a Christmas cake. I shan't make that unitl Christmas Eve though.

The cherry bun recipe is dead simple:

Standard sponge cake ingredients:
220g self raising flour, caster sugar, and marge
4 beaten eggs
100g of glace cherries (plus a few more for decoration)
100g ground almonds

I followed advice to make the cherries less likely to sink when baking, the advice was to wash and dry the cherries then toss in some flour. It seemed to work!
Make the sponge mixture as usual, by beating the butter/marge with the sugar, then gradually beat in the egg and finally sift in the flour.
Then stir in the cherries and ground almond
Dollop into cake cases in bun tins bake for 15 - 20 mins at about 180 C (I think that's gas mark 4)
I made 24 small buns but you could make 12 muffins with the mix easily I reckon.

I also used the M&S glace cherries which are dark not the traditional bright red and are soaked in cherry juice, they are delicious!

I had a lovely walk yesterday along the Wandle river. It was one of those sparkly, cold winter-sun day's. The song thrushes and robins were singing their hearts out all along the path to Mordern Hall Park. At the National Trust cafe and shop I had a lovely mince pie, quite unusal pastry, more like a traditional Bakewell tart (not the Mr Kipling sort) but with mincemeat in the middle instead of jam. From the shop I got some lemon curd and quince jam and made jam tarts. I over rolled the pastry so some of them shrank slightly. They tasted good, though not as nice as my cherry cakes :-)

CBT and Brighton

I had a really positive day today. I wanted to write about two of the reasons why my day was good. Those of you famila with psychotherapy will know that CBT is cognitive behavioural therapy, so the first part of this blog entry is a bit about that and how I have been feeling since being signed off work. The second part of my blog is about Brighton.

I'm sure that those who have not been seriously affected by stress or experienced a long term mental health condition must find it hard to understand what is all about. For me the last month has been a terrible one, looking back in many ways this whole year has been. Focusing on the last month though, I have been in almost a state of shock. All of us will have experienced that surge of adrenalin which makes your stomach lurch, your head swim, your body shake and the blood drain from your face. Most of us will only experience this a few times in our lives, if we receive shocking news or are involved in an accident maybe. For the last month I have felt like this for most of the time.

I have been shaking, twitching, finding it very hard to concentrate, feel sick, headachey, I feel very afraid of just about everything. I then slump into a state of listlessness and exhaustion. I think what I always under estimate and many others don't understand is how exhausting and debilitating living like this is for any period of time. I have some good days and some bad of course. I had to come home early from my parents because I was feeling bad, I just had a weekend where I felt totally hopeless. While all this is going on I am also feeling guilty for feeling like this and not being able to work at the moment.

So why do I feel like this? How can I ever feel better? Are questions I have been asking myself. Well, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (which I haven't started yet but My psychiatrist has recommended I read about and follow the exercises in a book Called Mind Over Mood) is a way of constructively answering those questions. It's none of that "Tell me about your Mother?" business, instead the basic concept is that our:
Environment
Feelings/ mood
Physical state
Behaviour
Thoughts
are all intrinsically linked and affect one another. Patterns and cycles can be formed in how we respond to any of them because they all impact on one another. By considering how, my present situation, the past few years and major life events have impacted on all of the above I can begin to understand why I am feeling, and behaving as I am and also identify patterns to change and those to strengthen - there are always positives as well as negatives.

With some trepidation I started working on this today. I had been putting it off but today I felt like I could make a start. I have only taken a few tiny steps down this road but right now it seems to make sense to me, and not much has made sense over the last few months.

Brighton

So Brighton, well it was sunny today and I have been advised by my Drs that I need to get out into the fresh air and also, when feeling positive need to do things that on bad days I might find too stressful. There is no way this weekend I could have faced the train journey or crowds in Brighton. Today I knew it would be quiet in Brighton and the train journey didn't seem too daunting particularly as I wouldn't have to use the underground.

Although it was sunny until lunch time by the time I reached the beach it was cloudy. When I arrived in Brighton I took my usual route through the North Lanes, stopping off at the Dumb Waiter for a veggie breakfast. I'm sure the gull (I think it is a herring gull) pictured below would have loved some of the food. I'm guessing the gull is a youngster which is why his feathers are brown and his beak dark at this stage.

I managed to do a bit of Christmas shopping in the lanes. I love the North Lanes of Brighton I have whiled away a lot of time there, just mooching about and people watching. I headed down to the sea front after a couple of hours and took a picture of this adult herring gull who seemed to be looking right at me with his greedy little eye.

It was absolutely freezing on the sea front but I had a good walk, enjoying the sea air and the out of season atmosphere of the sea side. When we lived in Newquay my favourite time was off season in the winter when the rock shop went back to being a bakers!

I took a few pictures of the old burnt down pier as the rain clouds gathered in around it. I was lucky that the rain only reached Brighton as I was walking up the hill to the station. I still had the odd wobbly moment and I had to make sure that I didn't rush around too much as that makes me anxious. But all in all it was a successful day out, the first I have managed by myself in quite a while.

As well as Christmas presents for friends I also bought myself a rather nifty jumper dress, totally 80s-Christmas-jumper-tastic! I shall wear it on Christmas day and at New Year!

Mince pie Monday

The very "rustic" mince pies above which look like they were made by a 5 year old were actually made by 35 year old me! They are mini mince pies, made with a Nigella recipe. I made my own mince meat as well. The mince meat is lovely but the pastry not up to my usual standard. I shall blame this on following the modern method of using a mixer to mix the pastry. I usually do it by hand ensuring the pastry is well aired. I shall revert back to the hand made method in future I think. Still the mini pies won't be too bad with some custard!

This weekend we put up the Christmas decorations, well I did it as a surprise for Jase although it was a surprise for him I also deprived him of joining in with the decorating so my surprise wasn't as great as I thought it would be. We have always decorated the tree together, I wish I had waited now and not surprised him at all!
I haven't been able to take many good pictures of the tree, my camera isn't great and I'm not a brilliant photographer. But above is a snap of the tree and below a close up of some of the decorations.
If anyone is wondering about the sparkly pink stags pictured earlier in my blog, they have pride of place on our book case, and the candle with Christmas decoration is on our living room table. Below is a picture taken by Jase of my favourite Christmas decoration my ruby branches. I bought them in a lovely little shop in Dulwich village about 5 years ago. Some of the beads have fallen off but it wouldn't be Christmas with out them.

Chatsworth by candlelight

Today Mum and I went to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, although we have visited many times before, during December the house is decorated for Christmas and lit by candle light, so we thought it was worth another visit. Above is a picture of some of the decorations on one of the many Christmas trees inside Chatsworth.

We also went for a walk in the grounds although it was very cold, not getting above 4C I took some photos of the holly, below which was very festive.
Inside the house the decorations were based around fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson one of the trees was decorated by the Duke and Duchess' grand children, they chose the little mermaid as their theme. The tree was decorated in seashells and creatures which made a very unusual Christmas scene. Below is one of the seashells nestling in the branches of the tree.
Here is another unusual image, lovely Greek statue next to the purple themes decorated Christmas tree. The hundreds of older ladies visiting Chatsworth today spent a lot of time viewing this scene, i am sure it was the tree they were interested in! I haven't seen Chatsworth so busy or the visitors so uniform. Almost all seemed to be over 55, with white hair and wearing a red or pink coat.
Chatsworth's grounds were full of sheep as ever, many wandering across the road as we tried to leave the grounds. This sheep however was just bleating at visitors arriving in their cars.
I am certainly feeling a lot more festive now, I can't wait to get my decorations up!