Here’s an ad that some of you might like to see if you’ve never been to Yorkshire – and some of you might like to see if you’re from here and haven’t been home in a while – and some of you might like to see even if you live here. The ad is to introduce Le Grand Départ of that great French cycle race the Tour de France 2014: racing starts in Yorkshire on 5th July 2014 before heading over to France on 8th July.
Watch this: you’ll see gorgeous views of my home county. Enjoy.
Or, in the local dialect, “Wesseling” to rhyme with “vessel”-ing. Yes, we’re having another of my How to Speak Yorkshire lessons, folks.
A curious thing happened in the couple of weeks before Christmas: three times in two days I heard local people refer to “Wesseling Cups”.
“The [Christmas] tree fell over and three of the wesseling cups broke”, said a member of the T’ai Chi class.
“I finished putting all the wesseling cups on my tree just before I came out”, said a member of the choir, and
“Some of my wesseling cups belonged to my grandma”, was overheard in a shop in the village.
Now, whilst I was certain that “wessailing” was the local dialect word for “wassailing” in all my years (and that’s a fair few now) I’d never heard of wassailing cups being hung on a Christmas tree before, but let’s take a step back as I’m assuming that you know what wassailing is, or was.
Wassailing developed from an old pagan fertility rite performed to waken the fruit trees from their winter slumber. As far back as the 1400s “Wassail”, which comes from the old English “Waes Hael” meaning “be you healthy”, was both a salutation and a drink of hot mulled cider given to visitors who went from house to house singing – Carols singers are the modern-day Wassailers. When I was growing up we would sing, “Here We Come a-Wassailing” at Christmas concerts given in school; our singing wasn’t followed by drinking hot mulled cider, I hasten to add. So, that’s a quick lesson in wassailing and you’ll have guessed by now that a wassailing cup contained that hot mulled cider I keep mentioning.
So, what of the locals hereabouts hanging wesseling cups on their Christmas trees? My first enquiries just brought forth explanations of what wassailing was (I know, I know!), but eventually I asked the right question of the right person and here’s the answer: wassailing cups, or “wesseling” cups in the local dialect, is a generic term for Christmas tree ornaments – any ornament, they don’t have to be cup-shaped.
Next Christmas I’m going to hang wesseling cups on my tree, but for the time being
My wish for you in 2014 is “Waes Hael!”
This beautiful autumn leaf heart was the result of the wind blowing leaves in to a heap in the doorway to the church where our choir (Horbury Singers) practises.
What a wonderful welcome.
Wow! What a month I’ve had. Back in February it felt rather silly to be booking myself in to Christmas fairs and markets in November, but the year whizzed by and suddenly there I was half-way through October making cookie mixes like there was no tomorrow in preparation for all the bookings I’d made.
The fairs started with the NSPCC Christmas Fair at Castle Howard a two-day event with an overnight stay in the very friendly, peaceful and comfortable Thompson’s Arms at Flaxton. You can see from this photo of my stall that I looked very grand between the pillars in the Grecian Hall; my stall even over-looked by a bust:
Castle Howard was immediately followed by Saturday at the Dewsbury Homemade Festival and finally Sunday at Huddersfield’s Upmarket Sunday. All very different; all great fun. That Monday I slept ’til lunchtime.
The following weekend found me at the three-day Shibden Hall Christmas Craft Fair. You may remember my stint in the haunted bedroom last year; me and the orbs. This year I was outside the hall in an estate worker’s cottage. No pillars or bust this time, but a log fire to keep me warm on a very cold weekend.
It was gratifying to find customers coming to find me because they’d bought my cookie mixes at this event last year and wanted more.
No rest for the wicked! This week off I went to a mid-week Ladies Christmas Shopping Evening; a fund-raiser in aid of Ruddi’s Retreat and then a quick turn around and away to York Christmas Fair at Skelton Garden Centre for two days at the weekend. Phew!
Today I paid a visit to the hairdresser – yes, I had a day off.
Looking back, it’s months since I last posted so much as a thought. Things got a little crazy here, as they do from time to time, but here in the midst of the craziness I’ve found a still, small moment to post a “Hi”.
Here’s a quick update on some of the craziness:
Poor little, well, not so little any more, Tanner broke a leg in a freak accident that is, apparently, not unusual in puppies. She had it pinned back together by orthopaedic specialist (and hero of the hour) Steve Clarke at The Willows veterinary practice. Trying to keep a giddy, energetic puppy quiet for a couple of months is no mean feat, let me tell you, but she’s looking great; there’s no hint of a limp; we are very pleased and not a little relieved.
Here’s an X-ray photo of Steve’s handiwork:
And here’s Tanner trying to get my attention while I’m trying to work on my laptop:
So, what else has happened? Ah, yes: The Leak
I walked in to the kitchen one evening and thought, hmmm… my sock’s all soggy (I’m being polite here). Checked that it wasn’t the puppy that had “leaked” – No. So, why did I have a puddle in the kitchen? It turned out that we had a long-running (please pardon the pun), slow leak from the pipe-work supplying the bath’s hot water tap.
It had quite possibly taken months to build up enough dripped water to soak through the floor of the bathroom, the ceiling of the kitchen beneath and the layers of cupboard beneath that. Rather like a sponge reaching critical mass and being unable to take in any more water, the leaking water had finally found its way out on to the kitchen floor and in to my sock. Great.
Now we have a fridge/freezer in the middle of the kitchen floor (I try to pretend it’s an island); a hole in the kitchen ceiling; no kitchen units on that side of the kitchen and all the contents of the units in boxes in the dining room. Oh, and a machine blowing hot air up in to the hole in the ceiling to dry out all the timber. On the plus side (yes, there really is one), our lovely plumber was able to fix the bathroom leak through the hole in the kitchen ceiling, so there’s been no visible damage in the bathroom.
In case you’re wondering, the cookie mixing goes on undaunted. “Cookie Central” is, fortunately, our granny flat kitchen and nowhere near the site of the leak – Phew! And what of the cookie mixes? That’s a story for another day.
This rather grand Kennel Club title heralds the arrival of Tanner a pedigree Airedale Terrier puppy who has recently joined our household. She’s eleven weeks old now and making life interesting for all of us, not the least Penny (alias Dimante Magic Millie, while we’re on the subject of grand titles), our ten-year old Airedale. In the two weeks that Tanner has lived with us Penny has gone from steadfastly ignoring her to slow acceptance mixed with warning growls (“You’re bugging me, kid”) and woofs (“Mum! She’s being naughty again”).
We’ve found that we have to explain Tanner’s name to folk of less mature years, so here goes:
In 1971 decimal currency was introduced in the UK. Pre-decimalisation we had pounds (£), shillings (/) and pence (d). There were 12d to the shilling and 20/- to the pound. Post-decimalisation we had (and still have) only pounds (£) and pence (p); the shilling disappeared altogether, and there are 100p to the pound. When I was a little girl the tooth fairy would leave a sixpence, a little silver coin worth, as the name suggests, 6d (6 pennies), under my pillow, a swap for the loose tooth that had fallen out that day. In slang terms the sixpence was also known as… wait for it… a “tanner”. Penny, Tanner, yes? Yes!
Here she is:
I took the cookie mixes to the street market at Cleckheaton Folk Festival this weekend.
Boiling hot and great fun, but look! The stall now sports blue, spotty, oilcloth covers (from The Tablecloth Shop) and a fab banner (from Bizarre Signs).
The cookie mixes and I felt very grand indeed.
Here’s a great photo sent to me by Lovely Mum of the lady bakers shown. The ladies are posing with the twenty-eight (yes, 28!) cookies they made from one of my mixes. They shared the dough between them and made half of it in to big cookies and half in to small – Excellent work, ladies!
The ladies are also talented dancers and I’m looking forward to watching them perform at St George’s Hall in Bradford this weekend. Break a leg, ladies, and thanks for sharing this photo with us.
Hurrah! My new Rainbow cookie mix is proving a great success, especially among my younger customers.
Heather’s Rainbow Cookie Mix
If you’d paid a visit to Shibden Hall Totally Locally Food & Craft Market at the beginning of June you’d have found me with my cookie mixes in the courtyard. Plenty of people did, including two lovely mums with their children who stopped to chat and taste the cookies. The little girls in the party were very taken with the idea of Rainbow cookies, which were duly handed round, “Do they taste like rainbows?” I asked, “BETTER!” came the reply. – Surely there is no higher praise.
Auntie Heather's Homemade 