The chill in the air together with T actually having a whole weekend off work, meant it was time:
Time to make the Christmas Cake.
Time to make the Christmas Cake.
We were in the supermarket buying ingredients for the cake, when a lady walked up to me, her face full of concern, babbling away. As I saw her come towards me, I feared she was speaking French and I would therefore not to be able to help her, but to my relief she spoke English. Her dilemma - which was causing her a huge amount of stress - was she couldn't figure out which of the crackers were salted and which weren't. Although one side of the packet is in French and the other side in English, the French side seems to always be the side viewable. But the words for salted and non-salted is something I do actually know the French for! I was able to point her to the ones she wanted, and she could have non-salted crackers.
.
I have always found it hard when someone needs help and I am not able to understand them. They must think I'm so rude as I mumble my excuses in English or a very broken take on their language and shrug my shoulders, shake my head, looking around for someone else to help them and then walking on as they stare after me in disbelief.
.
I have always found it hard when someone needs help and I am not able to understand them. They must think I'm so rude as I mumble my excuses in English or a very broken take on their language and shrug my shoulders, shake my head, looking around for someone else to help them and then walking on as they stare after me in disbelief.
Having survived the supermarket without any more drama, it was home to soak the fruit in brandy. (As well as testing a little of the brandy ourselves - it would have been awful if the tipple had gone off...ahem...)
Making this year's cake proved much less of a traumatic experience than last year. We had the tin (the expensive tin we had to buy last minute out here), we had all the utensils we needed, and we knew in advance what to by instead of treacle, and that the different, non-English sugar and flour, would work.
Two days later (we were supposed to soak the fruit for just twenty-four hours, but our Sunday got busy and we would have been waiting up into the small hours of Monday morning to take the cake out of the oven), we finally prepared the cake and popped it into the oven. The aroma of spices wafting through the apartment whilst it was cooking made our mouths water. Although we were very tempted to try a bit and bake another cake for Christmas itself, we managed to resist.
Fed and wrapped up securely, it is now sitting in the top shelf of one of the kitchen cupboards. Every time we open the cupboard to get bread or honey, we get a rich whiff of fruit and spices.
Mmm...
Fed and wrapped up securely, it is now sitting in the top shelf of one of the kitchen cupboards. Every time we open the cupboard to get bread or honey, we get a rich whiff of fruit and spices.
Mmm...
Talking of things Christmas, we walked the route we took on Christmas Day.
It looked so different with it's orange tint rather than white blanket.
Walking on a thin layer of fallen leaves was far easier than inches of snow too!
I don't know why we haven't walked up there more often.
Once at the top, instead of being greeted by the glorious view and a white dead end, the lack of snow meant we could see a path down the other side, as well as the gates into the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges graveyard being open. Not quite sure where the other path lead, and feeling somewhat tired, we chose the graveyard option. This may sound a little weird, but the graveyards on the side of Mt Royal are - dare I say it without sounding weird - pretty spectacular. Established trees and bushes interspersed the beautifully kept graves, the tarmac lanes cutting through amongst some impressive tombstones and huge crypts.
We were in danger of getting lost amongst the network of un-signed lanes, but thankfully we had our phones on us, and with them access to the internet and maps, so were able to do a circular route both through the NDG graveyard and also through the neighbouring Mt Royal Cemetery.
It is a walk I hope to do many more times - though the way the weather has suddenly turned, it may well be a white walk rather than a golden one...