The end...

All the visitors have gone home.  The holidays are at an end.  I have finally got to sit down.  In Cork! I'm here for the New Year celebrations.  And before the festivities start all over again,  I just want to say...

Happy New Year!

Very original, but there is not really much else to say!

Hope 2015 is a good year for everybody

And thanks for reading!

A grand day out.

Tradition denotes that on St Stephen day, all the Brennan's that are still standing after the Christmas day festivities, go for a walk.  But this year, due to inclement weather (it was lashing rain!), we had to stay indoors.

Our annual outing was postponed until yesterday, when we braved the heavy frost and went for a walk in the Phoenix Park, and fed the deer.  The herds are used to humans and are quite friendly.  Especially when you bring a bag of carrots to feed them with.  We tried to find Rudolph, but to the children's disappointment, he was nowhere to be seen!

We had Rusty with us.  He sat quietly and watched, until the stag got too close to the children, then he got quite annoyed.  Although I'm not sure if he was annoyed because the stag got too close or because the stag got a carrot and he didn't!

We soon ran out of carrots and had to move on.  We made for the Boathouse where we had coffee and cake.  And even though it was freezing we sat outside beside the lake, so that Conor could watch the ducks swimming.  I don't have a picture of that, my hands were too cold to take any more photos and stayed clamped around my coffee cup to keep warm!  But it was lovely, and the trees around Farmleigh still had Christmas lights in them adding to the atmosphere.

Pity it got dark so early and cut short our day out.  We got fish and chips on the way home so that nobody would have to cook!  I think that should be a new tradition!  No more cooking!

Don't think I would get away with that...??

Christmas with the Brennans (and Faheys and Behans!!)

For those of you that asked, here are the photos of the peaceful, calm and quiet Christmas at my house:

Before:

 During:

After:

That's poor Fergus, exhausted after making all that cinnamon soup!!  We did eventually wake him, but only when we needed the table to eat off again...

Of course, Mam almost ruined Christmas by forgetting to make the traditional sherry trifle, lucky Dad was on hand to give a speech about how proud he is of us all, which made us a 'trifle' emotional and saved the day!!

A big thanks to everybody who:

chopped vegetables

peeled potatoes

stirred gravy

smoked salmon

sliced ham

boiled puddings

stuffed cannelloni

baked cakes

minced pies

whipped cream

And to the rest of you who came along and ate, well, you're welcome!!

Can't wait to do it all again next year....

Ghostly greetings.

My Christmas card tree is filling up nicely.  Thanks to everybody who sent a card.

My favorite one comes from my 8 year old niece.  The usual Christmas and New Year greetings were enclosed in the card.  She has adopted a stray cat which she feeds every day and has named Fudge.  There was a greeting from Fudge enclosed also.

But, spookily (is that even a word?) if you look closely, you can see the ghosts of her two deceased cats Korky and Tigger, in the drawing too.

I suppose they were just getting into the Christmas spirit....

It's beginning to look a lot like...

....Mince Pies!

And here are the first batch.

As tradition denotes, we all get a baking job at Christmas.  Mam makes the puddings, Deirdre makes the Christmas cake, and my job is to make the mince pies.

The mince meat was made a couple of months ago and left to mature in glass jars at the back of the cupboard.  Every time I opened the door of the cupboard to get something mundane like rice or a tin of tomatoes or stock cubes, the mince was there, maturing, looking back out at me!  Tempting me.

So tonight I gave in to temptation, and made some pastry to go with the mince.

But I couldn't eat one from this batch. No, these are for donation, to a very special cause.  Dad's men's group!  They have their last meeting before the Christmas break tomorrow evening, and now they have an extra special treat to go with their obligatory cup of tea!

I had to resist the urge to eat one.  But I was good, I resisted.  I packaged them up and delivered them safe and sound.  Well sound anyway, I'm not so sure they are safe.  I am sure I heard the kettle being put on as I left...

And speaking of kettles, I must put my own on.

You don't think I made just one batch do you?