SO MUCH TO DO AND SO LITTLE TIME!

Hello Lovely Blippers,

Well, you didn’t expect to see us today, did you?  Mrs. HCB was up at 6.30 this morning and was out of the door by 6.50 on her way to Aldi to get a few last bits - not much, but we knew she wanted to make some soup, so wanted some parsnips to go in with the butternut squash that they bought on Wednesday.  As you know, we do like to be kind and helpful, so we said we would forego our Christmas present buying expedition so that we could go and help her.  But would you believe, Aldi had NO PARSNIPS!!  Mrs. HCB told us that when she asked the Manager he said they were still on the lorry, which was parked outside, so she had to give up that idea and get them instead from the Co-op on her way home.  

When she got home, she did sit and have a cup of coffee but said she was still full up from yesterday, so wouldn’t have anything to eat.

Then the work started in earnest - we helped to chop red cabbage, and Mr. HCB helped too - not for the soup, but for a special recipe for Spiced Red Cabbage with Apples to be done in the slow cooker.  Mrs. HCB remembered to put on some gloves so her hands wouldn’t get stained - and that would be silly, wouldn’t it - to have red hands at this time of year, although of course, red is one of the colours of Christmas.  We think that Admirer would have laughed about that!

After all that was put into the slow cooker, then we started to help with the preparation for the soup - a butternut squash, four or five parsnips, six or seven carrots, lots of lovely stock and spoonfuls of mild curry powder, Chinese 5-spice powder, garlic granules and also some tomato puree.  We can tell you it smelled wonderful when it was cooking in the soup maker and you can see we were all very helpful.  We had to be careful though, because Mrs. HCB has some very sharp knives and the last thing we wanted was to cut ourselves.

Mr and Mrs HCB have just had some soup for their lunch, sprinkled with Cheddar cheese and they both said how good it was - which as we all know, is down to the way the vegetables are chopped!  

So - we still have to go out and do our Christmas gift buying - which is silly, because “the world and his wife” will be out for the three days before Christmas, but we are sure we will get it done in time.  

Take care and remember to BE KIND - especially at Christmas time when many people will be lonely and some will be sad too.  If you can say a KIND word or do a KIND deed, then please do it.

Mr and Mrs. HCB have just come back from collecting LOTS of tins, packets and other lovely goodies from Morrisons, in fact, their car is packed.   All this will be used for the Bags of Hope that will go out after Christmas and everything was donated by the customers - who were being KIND and thinking of others.

Take care and have a lovely Christmas with your family and friends - we need to go and see if there are any other jobs we can do to help the HCBs.

Love to you all from
The Silly Saturday Gang xxx