Saturday: Advent day eighteen

 Good morning!  It's really drizzly and damp this morning and, I think, a bit colder. However, Beeb says it will be dull and boring all day - not quite like that, I hasten to add - so I'm not expecting much in the way of sun.

Yesterday was very productive.  I drove to Slimming World because I had quite a lot to carry, I had a short shopping list for Morrisons and it had turned pretty foggy, the worst it's been this year.  Luckily, it is close by so not hard to drive, especially as it was before it get's busy with milk run traffic (the hall, Morrisons and the school are all close to each other).
It was a lovely meeting.  I had lost just a little bit of the previous week's gain, much to my amazement.  I'm not sure how but I'm not arguing!  People brought a nice selection of nibbles.  We gave Jen some flowers as a thank you;  she really is a good group leader, so encouraging and cheerful.
There is a meeting next week, Christmas Eve, but just for a drop in weigh, no talky bits afterwards.  I asked and she said yes, she's appreciate my help as usual so that's going to be a pleasant start to Christmas Eve.
By the way, we do all wear masks and we socially distance.

Once home again, I set to with the Christmas Cake.  I had just planned to marzipan it but ended up also putting on the icing, after reminding myself of how to do it all via YouTube.  What I didn't do was put on the decorative bits - the holly icing, the little figures and the ribbon.  I have that on the plan for Sunday - well, the holly and the ribbon anyway - but might leave it until later on in the week as there's precious little that actually NEEDS doing.

This is where we're at so far.  I'm pleased with how nice and smooth it is on top - the side is a bit less so but it's going to be covered by ribbon so who cares?

Then I set to with the stollen.  Because I was using Thermione (much nicer when it's such a rich, soft dough), I didn't follow the instruction but made the plain dough first and while that was kneading away, I prepped the dried fruit and nuts, adding them at the end. 
I now have fifteen nice, chunky slices of stollen individually wrapped and in the freezer.
As there's still some marzipan left, I'm going to make another stollen but with different fruit, nuts and spice.  Again, I will make the dough in Thermione, adding my own Festive spice mix, and I will just make sore I have the same weights of nuts and dried fruit as in the recipe.  
And I will do it in a loaf tin - the first effort was free form.  It was fine but it would be nice to have a different shaped slice for the second effort.

I'll do that today as there's really nothing to do on the diary today.

I really should have known better.  One way and another I not only ate too much, I had a bewildering variety of stuff including too much fatty stuff (all my own fault) so overnight I had the usual repercussions (come back gall bladder, all is forgiven!).  I'm fine now, just with aching sides from tensing against the ouches so it's quite nice to have an easy day and I will take the opportunity to make some meal plans for the coming week, I think, and make my last minute shopping list - fresh foods, dairy, etc.  I will go to Sainsbury's for it as Dave mentioned a sort of Buck's Fizz type of drink - Winterberry Buck's Fizz - that he and Anna rather liked.

On to today's Christmas music and I have far more saved in my playlist than I can possibly use so decisions, decisions.
I think I am going traditional with that lovely old carol, Away in a Manger, sung by King's College choir.
I always understood the original version to be written by Martin Luther but Wiki tells me that it is now thought to be wholly American in origin.  You live and learn.

The arrangement is by David Willcox and has much more interesting underneath parts with plenty of passing notes, etc.  I've sung both alto and tenor in my time (when we were short of tenors) and tend to warble a sort of mixture of both parts - when no-one is listening!

Enjoy!