Christmas is coming...

It's been a few days of feeling Christmassy (as well as stress about the sheer amount of work that has to be finished by then).

But we now have a Christmas cake - recipe over here at Recipes for Millie - which looks rather spiffing. The new silicon tin (Lidl's versions are brilliant, and come in at under £3) is a marvel. No more faffing about with all that baking parchment.


And yesterday we trundled up to Kielder to take part in the Northumberland Lights 2008 installation, Out of Water. It was a fantastic, magical experience, albeit a little eerie to be wandering around the woods in the dark. I loved the illuminated bridge, whose steel ropes 'twanged' a tune, and the immensely tall pine trees, lit from below to look like totem poles.

The moon rose over Kielder Water during our walk, and you could see for miles across the water. It was so beautiful, we made a resolution to go back up there in the summer, and have another look in daylight.

The Strawbs

Today has been spent in strawberry heaven, which included several failed attempts to persuade a two-year-old that she should actually put some strawberries in a basket, and not in her mouth. Ah well. I'm sure the prices for pick-your-own include a slight uplift for the problem of light-fingered pickers, and judging by the numbers of small children with suspiciously red beards around the chin area we weren't alone.

I did some strawberry picking piecework years ago, when I lived in the middle of the Fens, and I'd forgotten the beautiful smell of a strawberry field (and the aching back, permanently stained fingers and hopelessly low piece rate available to minions like myself). It's a mixture of heady smells from the berries, straw (between the rows of plants) and warm sunshine, which creates something completely intoxicating. Admittedly, today was a little low on the warm sunshine quotient, but it was still pretty good.