The Queen's Christmas Message 2015

According to the BBC, the episode of "Downton Abbey" beat the infamous Christmas episode of "Eastenders".   Most Americans know of "Downton Abbey" but I don't think too many know of the soap opera, "Eastenders".  (I have watched "Eastenders" for many years.  I have fond memories of watching the very first episode from 1985, I believe!)  Now, even though those two shows were watched by millions, THE most viewed TV program was...wait for it...the Queen's Speech on Christmas Day!   

 

Joy of joys, I was able to find it on YouTube and the speech  is wonderful, truly it is! From "God Save the Queen" at the beginning to the boy's choir singing, "Away In A Manger" at the very end, this is most certainly worth 9 minutes of your time!   My son is a film major and I dearly would like to know what he thinks of this. I think it is perfect from start to finish.

You know I have it here for you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

AND by the way, the Queen DID say at the end of her speech..."I wish you a very HAPPY Christmas".  Just saying!  :-)

 

Oh, I just thought of this...any of my friends who are in the UK are saying to themselves, "WE have seen  and listened to this already"!  Okay, maybe so, but I hope you appreciate this speech!

 

THE LIGHT SHINES IN THE DARKNESS AND THE DARKNESS HAS NOT OVERCOME IT.

John 1:5

 

 

 

Hey, where did Christmas go? It is New Year's Eve already! Happy New Year , everyone! I will try to stay inside myself, there are too many nutters out there shooting off their guns! (They are told not to do this but alas, they do it anyway.)

And if the Queen should happen upon my blog, Happy 2016, your majesty. You know I know all the words to "God Save The Queen" but I am also an American, so I also sing that tune with "My Country Tis of Thee".   You are such a gracious, noble Queen, I know that is okay with you, right?

Love and light!

Like Father, Like Son!

If you look carefully at these two photos, you will recognize that both photos were taken in the same place...that is the pier in the background and both were taken in Eastbourne, in England!  I took the photo above in October of 2015. (You know I took it, it is blurry!)
And I can guess that Richard's mother took the photo below of Richard when he was a little boy!
It tickles me to see that he is concentrating on his sand castle, so much so that he doesn't even notice anyone taking a picture of him!

 

Looking at a photo of our son from years ago when we visited a children's zoo in England, I was struck by the resemblance between father and son!

 

Druscillas Zoo,  Alfriston,  East Sussex, England.



Mary Rose Sauce

Prawn cocktail with Mary Rose sauce.  Now, I ask you, doesn't that sound good? I spoke with my mother-in-law on Christmas day and she and Peter made the traditional Christmas roast chicken dinner with roast potatoes, carrots and peas, with that wonderful gravy that is made with Bovril cubes.  This meal is ...well, it is wonderful, that is all I can say!  Peter is in charge of the roast potatoes and he is also the one who chooses the wine! (And I know they had their Christmas crackers and wore their little hats!)  THIS year, Joan told me that she also made a Prawn cocktail with Mary Rose sauce and that she made the sauce herself.  I have had this sauce when I was in England but it made me wonder, why is it called that?  She told me that it had to have something to do with the old ship, the Mary Rose....

On July 19, 1545, the famous Tudor warship, the Mary Rose sank off the coast of England in the Battle of Solent.  This ship was a favorite's of Henry VIII, said to be  named after his sister. (This seems doubtful to me. I have also read that it was more likely named after the Virgin Mary, also known as the Mystic Rose at the time.)    It was not until 1982 that the ship was brought up out of the waters.  It was quite the job to do this, you may read more about it here. You may learn even more detail at this link-  Mary Rose.

The salvage work took many years and of course, these men had to be fed!  One day they had run out of sauce for the prawns (we call them shrimp in America!) and so the chef  simply mixed a few ingredients together.  He called it Mary Rose sauce!  I didn't have time to ask my mother-in-law for her recipe and I don't know the exact amounts, but from my reading, it appears that it is a mixture of ketchup, mayonnaise, salt, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce!  (It is similar to Thousand Island dressing but it is not exactly the same, not to my taste anyway.) I have also seen it called Marie Rose sauce and that was simply due to the fact that for a time any food that had a somewhat "French" name would garner more respect.  No matter what it is called, Mary Rose or Marie Rose sauce, I think it is delicious.  I like it with prawns inside a baked potato or a jacket potato, as they call it in England!  Richard took a photo of my jacket potato with prawns and the Mary Rose sauce when we were in England a few years ago...he was impressed by the number of prawns!

(NOTE - I really don't know for certain that the Royal Navy chef came up with this recipe for the sauce while the work was being done to raise the ship.  It DOES make for a good story but I have also read that it was invented by a woman named Fanny Cradock.  Oh well, no matter how or who created it, I really like it!)

Now, I realize that MOST people would wait until they had an actual recipe for Mary Rose sauce until they did a post about it...but I am not like most people, am I? No, I had to write this while it was fresh on my mind.  If anyone knows the recipe, please tell me in a comment, and I will edit this and give you credit, honest I will!  Besides, it will save me from pestering asking Joan, my mother-in-law!
UPDATE- Please look in my comments and you will see 3 different recipes for Mary Rose Sauce from Lee from Australia!  Thank you, Lee! She has the most wonderful recipes on her blog, go and visit her, why don't you?  You may find her blog here!
Thanks again, Lee!

By the way, if you go to that link, you will see that the museum in Portsmouth which houses the Mary Rose closed in the autumn of 2015  but will re open in the summer of 2016!  Go there, why don't you, and say that I sent you!  And eat some Mary Rose sauce while you are at it! (I think we should say Mary Rose instead of Marie Rose!)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  Merry?  Happy?  Yes!!

Happy Christmas or Merry Christmas?

"Merry Christmas and God bless us every one!"

I love my Christmas cards! I notice that from my cards from England, the writer will write "Happy" Christmas, whereas in my cards from my American family and friends, I am wished a "Merry" Christmas.

I have read that the reason behind this is because that Americans fully embraced the story, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens and since a "merry" Christmas is used so much in that wonderful tale, then that is how it came to be so popular.  Now, the only thing about that theory...this same story is, of course, very popular in England also, so why do people there not say "merry" ?  It amuses me sometimes that the English language is used and pronounced so very differently in America.  For example, did you know that the huge company that you can order books from...you know the one that is also the same name as the mighty river in South America?  It is ama-ZAHN in America but in England it is pronounced ama-zun (rhyme last syllable with gun). It is almost as if Americans said, "okay, we will use your language but we will say it like THIS".

Oh well! Potato, Po-tah-to!  However, you say it, I do wish you all the very best!  If you get the chance, go  and look at this post just here.  You can see that even SANTA can be prickly!  We are all in need of forgiveness, I believe.   Merry Christmas/Happy Christmas/Peace and Joy to you all!

Look On The Bright Side/The Snow Lay On The Ground

 

 

I really love this cartoon.  This is from a Christmas card and my son knows how much I like this, so last year he found one in a store and bought it for us.  Funny and positive, this is my kind of humor!

 

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"The Snow Lay On The Ground" is a song that I heard for the first time on the radio as I was sitting in stopped traffic on I-20 on the way to see my Daddy on Saturday.  (It was due to construction work, it took 20 minutes to move 2 miles, so I had time to listen to music!)

I really like this hymn! I would love to find the choir that I heard on the radio but maybe you would like to hear the tune and sing along with it?  Go ahead and sing, you know you want to! 

Now, I ask you, do you know this song? It seems that it is not very well known in the USA but then, maybe I have just missed it.    Let me know if you like it as much as I do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onion Brunch Bread

You will never guess, I have made this recipe since 1980.  Anybody remember when they used to put recipes in with your gas bills?  This is where it came from!  I remember I made it that year to take to an office lunch and when my co workers asked for the recipe, I wrote down that the cheese/sour cream mixture should be SLATHERED over the top. 
How they laughed at me, saying that there was no such word! I was embarrassed and I am sure I turned a bright red.  Of course, that WAS the correct word to use! I just didn't know how to stick up for myself in those days. Don't worry, I have since changed my timid ways! HA!  Okay, enough about my awkward self, here's the recipe.

Onion Brunch Bread:

1 onion chopped                                       1 pkg Jiffy cornbread mix
1 tablespoon butter, melted                       1/2 cup cornmeal
8 oz. sour cream                                        1 egg, beaten
1/4 tsp. salt                                                 1 cup cream style corn
1/2 tsp dillweed                                          1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon yellow mustard                      1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce 
1 1/4 cups cheddar cheese, grated               (I don't use this myself)
 (grate this much, but note that 1/4 cup
  will go in mixture and 1 cup on top 
 of bread.)

Heat oven to 425 degrees.
Saute onion in butter until tender. Combine sour cream, seasonings and only 1/4 cup cheese.  Add to onion in pan, stirring well. 
In separate bowl, combine cornbread mix, cornmeal, the egg, and the cream style corn.  Add the milk.  Mix well.  The recipe said to use an 8 inch square pan, but I used my brownie pan.
Grease your pan and pour the batter into it and smooth it out.
I gently splop my sour cream/onion/cheese mixture on top and then, I slather it over smoothly!  Put the rest of the grated cheese on the top. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.  (Mine was cooked in 25 minutes.)  Let cool and then cut into small squares.

PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT a gluten free recipe! That Jiffy Cornbread Mix has wheat flour in it, so this  is NOT something that I can make for my husband who must be on a gluten free diet. (I have made this for him, I just used a cornbread recipe that used gluten free cornmeal and made sure the the cream style corn and dillweed were also gluten free.) 

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And I am thinking that you could also make this sour cream topping and it might work on any bread recipe!  Just make sure you use American style mustard, you use some of that English yellow Coleman's mustard and you will knock someone's eyeballs out!  Let me know if you try it, will you?  And don't be afraid to just SLATHER it on, baby!  

Hope you are enjoying this time of year with family and friends!

You know those people who can take great photos of their baked goods? Wish I was one of those! Oh well, you are seeing two of my favorite things in my kitchen- my Baker's Secret brownie pan and my red oven mitt trimmed in aqua! The mitt has tiny white polka dots on it, we used to call that dotted Swiss, do people use that expression anymore?

No Water/Lowering of the Lakes At Panola Mountain State Park

 

Anybody remember me telling you that the lakes at Panola Mountain were to be drained?  This will happen this week.  We are being told that the upper lake will not be completely drained but will have the water level lowered and they will still allow fishing there.  We wanted to make sure to visit the lakes this past weekend since we knew that the date for the draining/lowering...whatever you call it, would happen on the 16th.  So, here we are, thinking of the beauty of those lakes and the wonderful wildlife they support and what do you think happened today? We woke up this morning and in our own household, we had no water! You have to love the irony!  After several phone calls (never mind that I called about water leaking exactly one week ago!) a repair crew was sent out and the leak was fixed.   Hopefully, if there is any problem with the dam at the lakes at Panola, they also will be repaired and we will enjoy the lakes again.  Water...it is very nice to have!



 

 

 

These photos were taken on December 13th and the blue sky and clouds reflected in the water was just amazing.  It was as if the lake knew it would be drained soon and it was saying, "look and enjoy!"

Richard and I also saw a ruby crowned kinglet this weekend in our own backyard.  We have seen this bird before but this time, the little bird had its bright red crest raised on its head.  Just gorgeous!  (The photo that I found for you here just shows the red crest, but when this is raised...it is BRIGHT red and a sight you will never forget!)
Hope you are all doing well these days and enjoying the water that comes out of your tap/faucet!

The Blessing of the Eastbourne Pier/All Together Now

The beautiful Victorian pier in Eastbourne...I have a photo of it as my header photo just now.  It caught fire in July of 2014 and part of it was totally destroyed.  It has now been repaired (although the huge enclosed dome is now gone) and it was sold to another owner, Sheik-Abid Gulzar. This past Sunday on the sixth of December, the owner invited the Bishop of Lewes to bless the pier and invited the public to join in the celebration.  I liked what he had to say about this and I have it here...

“I am a Muslim, my operations manager Manas is a Sikkh, and other members of staff are Christians - I want to emphasise the importance of diversity and accepting each other’s culture.
“We must all respect each other and we should all have the freedom to follow whatever religion one may wish to. But that doesn’t mean we cannot all come to together as one and join together.
“I would like the pier to be blessed with a clear message - to live together and act together. 

“I want to spread the message of love, of working together, of prosperity and the fact that we all live in a democracy. We are all human beings and I want the blessing for the people of Sussex.

I think a blessing is very apt and relevant for the town and indeed the wider community."

If you would like to read an article about the blessing, you may read it just here.

This month I have enjoyed hearing "All Together Now" in a TV ad for Kohl's Department Store.  It is a Beatles song, of course! It was  written by Paul McCartney.  (Yes, I know that legally the music is listed as Lennon/McCartney, but most Beatles fans know that most of the songs were either written by one or the other, NOT always, but usually.  And of course, you really must know that George Harrison wrote some great songs too!)

Now, the clip of the song I have here for you is from the very last part of the film of "Yellow Submarine", the animated film which unfortunately did not use their lovely voices but at least, you do get to see them at at the very end singing this song! (The songs in the film are sung by the Beatles, but NOT the voices...the actors did a good job of it though!)  Watch it through to the end and you will be rewarded by seeing "All Together Now" in several different languages.  

It's a good song and a good message to remember.

Richard posing in front of Eastbourne Pier.

Christopher admiring the pier from 2010.

"Majesty and Love" - Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley, you know the name, don't you? You should recognize her as the author of "Frankenstein", a novel which she wrote when she was in her late teens.  She was the wife of the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley.  There is a great deal of detailed information at the poetry foundation website about her and you may find it here.  Fascinating story of her life!

There were two instances this week that made me think of her....  Today, on the BBC website, there was a list given of the top 20 British novels and her book was listed at number nine.

Also, this past week, there was news about the Mona Lisa, the famous painting by Da Vinci. The news was that by some kind of technology that there might be different paintings UNDERNEATH the Mona Lisa painting. Now, what was I trying to tell you before science reared its ugly head? Oh yes, Mary Shelley....well, you see, the Mona Lisa made me think of another one of the masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper.  And when I happened to look just a bit further...I happened upon something written by Mary Shelley when she saw the painting of The Last Supper in Italy...

"First we visited the fading inimitable fresco of Leonardo da Vinci.  How vain are copies! Not in one, nor in any print, did I ever see the slightest approach to the expression in our Saviour's face, such as it is in the original.  Majesty and love - these are the words that describe it - joined to an absence of all guile that expresses the divine nature more visibly than I ever saw it in any other picture."




The Poetry Foundation article that I have the link to above, states that although Mary Shelley was most well known for her works of fiction, she was a most excellent writer and she should also be known for her works of NON fiction. (Okay, they worded it much better than my paraphrase, but you get the idea, right?)

Anyway, rather than to just think of Mary Shelley as the author of Frankenstein, I will remember her description of "The Last Supper".

"Majesty and love".   

The above is a photo of a painting that we saw at the Monastery which is very close to where we live in Rockdale County.  In all the rush of the season, I am grateful to be so close to this quiet retreat. 

Now, I sincerely hope that all of you are very organized and have it all together.  Me, I can't find my Christmas ornaments that I made for my tree!  Oh well, here is what they look like...if I have them here, maybe this will jog my brain and help me to find them. Wish me luck!

And one more thing, I thought to have the list of the 20 top novels that I mentioned, but since I thought that didn't fit, I took them out. Somehow, that made everything go kind of strange with a ghostly background in white, I really don't know how to fix that or delete it!

Peace And Grateful Thanks

 Richard and I stopped by a park this past Saturday and went on a walk.  You would never believe it but this is close to a very busy shopping area.   As you can see from our photos, Lenora Park was almost deserted.  It was heavenly!

 And then, on the drive back home, we saw some wild turkeys in the front yard of a home not far from our house!  I only managed to get a photo of one of them which is not bad considering I was the one driving and took the photo too!  (Luckily, everyone must have been shopping as there were no other cars on the road.) 

No turkeys or drivers were hurt in the production of this photo!

I hope that is a camera that crazy lady has pointed at me!

Amidst all the busyness at this time of year I hope that you find a place of peace and quiet. 

Thank you for all who left their sweet comments on my last post about Joan's birthday.  That was a like a big birthday gift, so I thank you!

It's December...Happy Birthday, Joan!

It happens every year, just after Thanksgiving but December catches me off guard every time!
Today is my mother-in-law's birthday and I can't be with her today but I was there in October for my father-in-law's birthday, so I will share a few photos from that day.

(Being in England now seems like a happy dream, much like the little boy pulling the scarf from his pocket at the end of "The Snowman".)

 

A celebratory meal of smoked salmon sandwiches and champagne makes me smile every time!
And may I just say, I got some UNWAXED LEMONS FROM SPAIN to squeeze over the salmon and I am sorry, but that deserves all capitals, it does, they were wonderful!  Fond memories of lemons, you are thinking, but hey, they were delicious and unlike anything I have had before. (Not forgetting the wonderful bread, champagne and the smoked salmon from Scotland!)

Please notice the birthday cake with FOUR CANDLES.   There is a reason for that number and it has to do with the TWO RONNIES.  I have had this video on here before but I must share it again with you.

You will laugh at me I know but as I walked past Joan and with the sun shining through the window, I was struck by her pretty hair and her thin gold necklace on the back of her neck. Pure elegance, I tell you!  Happy Birthday, dear Joan, enjoy your day and hopefully enjoy some birthday wishes sent your way today!



Okay then, it is December but guess what...we still have some lovely color on our trees.  It seems that some of the red colors are the last ones hanging on.  I don't have any great photos of this to show you, but I promise you, they are lovely.  Happy December!