Holly Trees

I went to Saffron Walden at some unearthly hour in the dark this morning with my daughter and granddaughter. We went to Waitrose to get some oddments and I was very pleased that the Ocado lorry had delivered yesterday; much of the Waitrose stuff was out-of-date before Christmas. I wanted some lemons, an extra gluten-free pudding and some extra gluten-free mince pies. The gluten-free section was sadly lacking, no Christmas puddings and only one pack of not-so-good Waitrose own mince pies. The Hale and Hearty ones, which were delivered yesterday, taste just like a mince pie should.

We then went for breakfast in The Courtyard, they had only just opened, we had smoked salmon and scrambled egg on toast and Victoria had a bacon baguette. I take my gluten free bread and they toast it for me; excellent.

Nothing much else to do now except make the mulled wine on Christmas morning as well as the leeks in cheese sauce, both will be transported to our daughter’s home.

It is now the middle of the afternoon and it has been blowing a gale and teeming with rain all day, so I took this picture, from the shelter of the veranda, of two of our holly trees, the one in the foreground is a variegated one. The thermometer says it is ten degrees Celsius, but with the wind chill factor and the rain it feels like minus ten!