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A Bustle & Sew Publication Copyright © Bustle & Sew Limited 2023 The right of Helen Grimes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Every effort has been made to ensure that all the information in this book is accurate. However, due to differing conditions, tools and individual skills, the publisher cannot be responsible for any injuries, losses and other damages that may result from the use of the information in this book.
First published 2023 by: Bustle & Sew Station House West Cranmore Shepton Mallet BA4 4QP www.bustleandsew.com
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Welcome to the December Magazine Hello everyone! And just like that we’ve reached the end of the year and it’s Christmas! I can hardly believe it - and I’m definitely not festivity-ready just yet! There’s lots to help me prepare in this month’s issue though, including the final Christmas projects of the season, some recipe ideas and hints and tips to make sure the terrible trio (Rufus, Ted and Alfie) and indeed all pets stay safe over the holidays. The Christmas projects include a little felt reindeer decoration (page 18), another for Rosie’s collection. It’s become a bit of a tradition between us that every year I make her a new decoration for her tree. I gave her the first in 2016 to mark Freddie’s first Christmas (he was born on Boxing Day 2015 so had a long wait for his first) and have continued ever since. And when you have a moment, there are articles to enjoy as well - my favourite to research was definitely Mrs Delaney who must have been a remarkable woman, and I hope you find reading about her interesting too. Anyway that’s enough from me - and now all that remains is to wish you a very Merry Christmas, wherever you are and however you’re spending it. Very best Christmas wishes
Helen xx
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The Turning of the Year So quiet and subtle is the beauty of December that it escapes the notice of many people their whole lives through. To them it is simply a winter month to be lived through somehow; they bracket it with January and November as “the dead of the year>” Yet it has its own characteristic beauty. It is, of all the year, the time when colour gives place to form; the trees, stripped of their autumn brilliance, stand, every branch and twig distinct, in a delicate dark tracery against the sky; the downs, now that the heath and bracken are beaten down, stand firmer and sharper of outline; new vistas, obscured all the summer by leafage, open up between them. The earth renews herself, not in sprig only, but at every season.
Edward Step, Nature Rambles: An Introduction to Country-lore, 1930
Floral Thompson: extracts from The Peverell Papers
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Then again, on December days of sun and wind, what a pageantry of cloud scenery we have; no other month, unless it be March, can match it. Clouds piled in Alps upon the horizon; clouds in fleets, scudding before the wind across an azure sea of sky; clouds in fleeces, white or yellow or rainbow touched like moultings from the angels’ wings. The quiet everyday effects of light and shade, the dove and dun of a wet December afternoon, the rose and grey of a frosty sunset, all await their poet…
Give your pets a merry (and pawfectly safe) Christmas! Did you know that in the UK emergency visits to the vet increase by over 120% over Christmas? From festive food and drink to decorations and even gifts, there are many hidden hazards around at this time of year so it’s important to stay informed and alert to ensure an accident-free holiday season. Christmas is of course a time of festivities and feasting, but many of our favourite celebration foods are bad for, if not positively harmful to, our pets. Nine out of ten poisonings happen in the home, so it’s important to be mindful, aware and one step ahead. If in doubt - don’t! That is to say, if you’re at all unsure whether or not your pet can eat something safely, then the best advice is always to avoid giving them that treat. Make sure too, that dangerous foods are kept well out of reach so that a mischievous furry friend can’t simply help themselves! Always dispose of leftovers carefully and make sure chocolate gifts aren’t left under the tree and any chocolate decorations hung well out of reach. I’m sure all responsible pet-owners are aware of what their animals should and shouldn’t eat - but have you considered the decorations? 7
Blooming Lovely … the marvellous Mrs Delaney
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Born in 1700, by the 1780’s Mary Delany had become something of a legend, loved for her kindness as well as for her style and wit. She knew many of the greatest men and women of her time and had personal experience of many of the century’s historical events. She was the friend of Handel and corresponded with Jonathan Swift. She knew Hogarth and may have had drawing lessons from him, while no less a person than Sir Joshua Reynolds praised her flower collages or “papermosaicks.” She was a close friend of King George III and Queen Charlotte who became deeply interested in her “mosaicks,” a few of which you can see on this page and the previous one. Mary was a remarkable woman in many ways. For example, she was one of the group of women who besieged the House of Lords in 1739 and gained admittance against all the rules and regulations - a very early success for womens’ rights. She was, if not forced, then certainly pressed into marriage with Alexander Pendarves, a Cornish MP. Mary was just seventeen and he was nearly sixty. It was not a happy marriage, and when he died seven years later, he had made no provision for her in his will, leaving her in reduced financial circumstances. However, as a widow, Mary was much more able to move freely in society and for the first time in her life, was able to pursue her own interests without the oversight of any man. Perhaps because of her own unhappy marriage, she was not satisfied with the options available to women in the 18th century. She wrote,
Mary Delany in later life
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Magic and Merrymaking
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Pears in Red Wine Syrup Ingredients ● Serves six ● About 500 ml dry red wine ● 110g caster sugar ● ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon ● Pinch of ground ginger ● 12 small or six large pears, ripe or unripe ● Red food colouring (optional) ● Small bay leaves to decorate ●
Method ● Put the wine, sugar and spices in an enamel-lined or stainless steel saucepan just large enough to hold the pears standing upright. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. ● Meanwhile, peel the pears as thinly as possible, leaving the stalks on. Put them into the hot syrup, cover and simmer very gently for 20-30 minutes or until just tender, basting them occasionally with the syrup. Transfer the pears to a serving dish with a slotted spoon. ● Taste the syrup and add more sugar to taste, then boil rapidly without covering until reduced by half and of a coating consistency. Cool a little, then spoon over the pears to give them an attractive reddish gleam. If the colour of the syrup doesn’t seem bright enough, then add 2 or 3 drops of red food colouring. ● Baste the pears with the syrup until cold, then chill until ready to serve. Decorate with bay leaves stuck into the stalk ends of the pears.
Tastes of the Season: Sweet Chestnuts Sweet chestnuts abound across the English countryside throughout the autumn months not to be confused with the inedible horse chestnuts of course - forming carpets of fresh green bristles, each case enclosing shiny dark brown chestnuts, smaller and less spherical than the horse chestnut or conker. Wild chestnuts are often overlooked here in the UK, but are popular across Europe, especially around the Mediterranean, where traditionally they were a staple food for the poor. However cultivated chestnuts - completely the opposite - were seen as a luxury food, especially those grown around Lyons in France, which are used to make marrons glaces. Chestnuts are high in starch and water, but low in protein and fat. They can be ground finely to make chestnut flour, delicious used in small quantities mixed with high-gluten flour when making bread. They can be frozen - blanch and open freeze them, and transfer to freezer bags once fully frozen. Defrost before use and add to your classic Christmas stuffing, or why not try using for soups, souffles and purees too? To roast your chestnuts on an open fire (as the song goes), slit them first to let the steam out and stop them exploding then cook on a chestnut roaster or shovel for 20-25 minutes. No open fire? Then you can roast them in the oven at 220 C or gas mark 7 for 20-25 minutes. Chestnuts work well combined with Brussels sprouts (for sprout lovers only of course, of which I am one!), Butternut squash, cabbage, chocolate, coffee, mushrooms, pears, rosemary and vanilla.
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Nature Notes Redbreast or Robin Redbreast migrates from the groves and thickets towards the habitation of man in November, and in the frost of the hybernal season comes close to our windows, and even our firesides, when it can find entrance, in search of food.
The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural Phenomena, 15
Silent Night: The Christmas Truce of 1914 On a crisp, clear morning more than a century ago, thousands of British, Belgian and French soldiers fighting in the First World War put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches and spent Christmas mingling with their German enemies along the Western front, This event has come to be seen as a kind of miracle, a rare moment of peace just a few months into a war that would eventually claim over 15 million lives. But what actually happened on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of 1914 — and did they really play soccer on the battlefield? To this day historians continue to disagree over the specifics: no one knows where it began or how it spread, or if, by some curious festive magic, it broke out simultaneously across the trenches. Nevertheless, some two-thirds of troops — about 100,000 people — are believed to have participated in the legendary truce. Most accounts suggest it all began with carol singing from the trenches on Christmas Eve, “a beautiful moonlit night, frost on the ground, white almost everywhere.” On Christmas morning , in some places, German soldiers emerged from their trenches, calling out “Merry Christmas” in English. Allied soldiers came out warily to
“First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing – two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.” Graham Williams, 5th London Rifle Brigade
greet them. In others, Germans held up signs reading “You no shoot, we no shoot.” Over the course of the day, troops exchanged gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons and hats. The Christmas truce also allowed both sides to finally bury their dead comrades, whose bodies had lain for weeks on “no man’s land,” the ground between opposing trenches. The phenomenon took different forms across the Western front. One account mentions a British soldier having his hair cut by his pre-war German barber; another talks of a pig-roast. Several mention impromptu kickabouts with makeshift soccer balls, although, contrary to popular legend, it seems unlikely that there were any organized
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The Christmas Tree I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; and there were real watches (with moveable hands, at least, and an endless capacity of being wound up) dangling from innumerable twigs; there were French-polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeable in appearance than many real men - and no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes, sweetmeat boxes, peep-show boxes, and all kinds of boxes; there were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were guns, swords, and banners,; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, hummingtops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smellingbottles, conversation-cards, bouquetholders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold-leaf; imitation apples, pears and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me, delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, “There was everything, and more.”
Charles Dickens 17
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The In-Between Time The days between Christmas and New Year, sometimes referred to as “betwixmas” can be a blessing as they give us an opportunity to step away from our often all too busy lives, pause and take a deep breath and relax after yet another busy and demanding year. The great festival of Christmas with all its joys, traditions and, let’s be honest, stress and hard work too, is behind us, and many workplaces are closed for the holidays leaving us free to spend our time as we choose a rare luxury these days. The fridge and larder are well stocked, there is the opportunity to read - whether an old favourite, Christmas gift or simply a novel we’ve been meaning to try for some time. There are dogs to walk across frosty fields, returning to a warm fire and a warm drink to thaw our toes afterwards. It isn’t all rest and relaxation during this period though - especially if you’re a keen sportsperson, or follower of sport as many fixtures take place on Boxing Day. Or perhaps you’re more likely to head for the Boxing Day sales? And of course towards the end of the week there are preparations for New Year’s Eve to consider, that then blend into New Year’s Day - the last chance to enjoy some self indulgence before returning to normal daily routine once more. Edward Step,Night, NatureonRambles: Introduction to the Country-lore, 1930 Twelfth the fifth An of January marks official end of the Christmas holiday and is the time by which all decorations must be taken down and safely stowed away or risk being cursed with bad luck for the rest of the year. But still, there is a real sense of peace, of the world standing still and a chance for rest in these in between days - and I do hope that you are able to enjoy it too.
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