Book review - A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

I am starting with this book for my first book review, because of the timing (being Christmas and all) and also because I just finished reading it.
I really loved it, and, because I'm a sook I did have a cry at the end. I am sure you are all familiar with this story and like me, have probably all seen a couple of different versions of it represented in film, but have not yet read the book. Do yourself a favour, grab it and read it ! Its not long and even with the old English expressions, which at times are frustrating and need to be re-read, its actually an easy read.

I will get a bit serious for a minute, this book is a nice kick up the butt (especially in the wake of the economic crisis) to make us think about curving our greedy ways. To make ourselves remember whats important, and that maybe, because we forget whats important, might be why we are in this mess in the world at the moment!

Anyway, so, what did I like about it ?

I found Dickens style of writing a pleasure to read. I loved his description of inanimate objects, the way he gave them a human persona -

"The ancient tower of a church. whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there."

and
"They  were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again."
There are lots more of these examples, I really loved that about the book. However, it's the message of the book that  makes it so special and timeless. This message hasn't change over times, I guess its the "human
factor" that so many of us forget to think of others in a generous manner. And even though this book doesn't talk about the death of Christ, I think it has a truly Christian message. One of tolerance, giving, forgiveness, love and HOPE. Christmas,  is that once a year we are made (no matter what your belief) to think of those around us, to take time out for one another. This book makes you think that it shouldn't just be once a year that we make such effort for each other but this ethos should be part of our every day.

""It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen,and travel far and wide, and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is me!-- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"
Make the most of your every day and do good.
I think that we were put here, with all the capabilities we have, to do good and be grateful for what we have been given - the ability to look after and provide for ourselves and those that are truly in need of help.  Like when Jacob said:
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. " He should not have gotten distracted by his trade or earnings, even though they are important they are not everything.
I could go on and on - but one of my favourite quotes from Scrooge was :
"...I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value."
and this
""...for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself."

So I give it a big fat 10.

Tomato Relish, thanks to Ronan

Well Hi again, as I mentioned in the previous Blog we had picked a bucket of tomatoes from the garden, and Ronan made (with a little help from Mum) a tomato relish.
The recipe we used was a "whatever we have in the house" recipe. Using ingredients that could be used to make a tomato relish, without going out shopping.
We used:

Small bucket of baby roma tomatoes (picked from the garden)

Some brown sugar, what was left of a Spanish onion, about 3/4, some Italian white wine vinegar (I'm not big on measuring), sprig of Rosemary (picked from the garden), garlic, mustard, all spice and seasoning

Roughly chop the tomatoes (we want a chunky relish)

Chop, chop, chop

and more chopping !

Mummy did the onions

Peeling the Rosemary off the sprig

Scrape ingredients into the Le Creuset - of course !

Stir onion gently until almost clear, then add brown sugar, let cook for a while until dissolved. Then add all the rest of the ingredients - I used about two tablespoons of vinegar and the same of brown sugar and then heaps of garlic.

Bring to boil, then turn down to simmer, for around an hour or so, you can tell buy how it looks and tastes when its finished.

Reducing nicely, just a bit longer

Ready to jar up into some washed out, left over pesto jars we had

Finished product!

You could wash the labels off these and decorate with fabric and ties. They would make great gifts.

Ronan - "Junior Master Chef "- very proud of his work.

Verdict:

Tasted this so far with eggs on toast for breakfast, mmmmm. Then I had it with spinach and ricotta triangles, yummmy. Next time we will add chilli to it, for Mum and Dad.

Vege Garden and bling shoes.

Just over a year ago my amazing husband told me he was going to build a little vegetable garden in the back yard, I thought this was a great idea. I expected to come down from working in the house to find a nice little turned and planted patch. With some key items we use regularly, something small and easy to tend to (because I knew that would be my job). To my pleasant surprise I found a masterpiece that measured about 14 foot by 20 foot !! Well it flourished, as you can see in these old pictures, this was our first crop !!!

We used most of what grew, but it was all new to both of us and at the end of these crops we changed our strategy. Well, we actually let it rest for a while and then started over again. We now grow the following items and they also flourish: snow peas, coriander, spinach, bok choy, silver beet, rocket, corn and lettuce. I love just being able to pop down the back yard to cut off some fresh greens etc to add to our meals. He has also recently been testing some brewing herbs like mints and lemon grasses to have as tea, they taste amazing! Our most recent addition was some comfrey, research needs to be done on how to use this one.

A recent post in the "Diary of a Shoe lover" Blog, I wrote about the use of my old shoes as House Shoes. I really do wear these as my garden shoes, and now my chick feeding shoes.

After planting all the seedlings mentioned above, we had a tomato plant grow up by itself (above left), it just kept growing and growing and growing. It also produced lots of what we eventually worked out must be a miniature roma tomato plant. They are delicious, and we have harvested about 10 kilos from this one plant! Its at the end of its life, hopefully we can grow some vines off the seeds. Well, I am about to go and make a tomato relish with the last bucket load of them, fun fun. Actually I thin I will get Ronan to make it.

Talk soon x

Waiter, I think there's a chicken in my salad !!!!

Welcome

Welcome to this little Blog, it will have lots of stories about shoes, food, and other related subjects. I do hope you enjoy this, I absolutely loove food, wine and shoes. Whilst I always appreciated great shoes, my obsession with them has grown over recent years.  I have had access to some awesome shoes (wine and food as well) so I felt I should share some of this with the world. I hope you enjoy x First official Blog coming soon !

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