Having a Christmas Tree in the room is a bit like having an extra member of the family come stay, especially when it is about 13 foot tall and is just two inches short of the ceiling. I hadn’t quite meant to come away from Church Farm with the tallest tree that they had but twenty minute trudging through mud and comparing the merits of the various trees on offer that is what we ended up with.

The others were too thin at the bottom, or too thick at the top, or they weren’t quite the right shade of green, or there was a kink in the trunk. So we came away with the tallest and just about managed to sneak it in.

Around the settling of the tree I made a pan of crurried parsnip soup, a roast chicken and four tomatoes stuffed with an egg. They all went down well on a  wet and grey Sunday.

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There have been two bits of goods news coming from the cellar.

The first, and most important given the weeks ahead, is that the barrel of beer has developed a good head. This morning it looked flat and un-inspired but by the time I was home for the evening the yeast and slight heat had done its work and there was a thick creamy head and a smell of bread being kneaded and full impression given that sugar was being converted into alcohol.

The second bit of good news was finding a partridge. I knew there was one  down there but it took three good furtles through the chest freezer until I found it. I had wrapped it up well. Along the way I came across two frozen rabbits that had ben down there for far longer than the partridge, a couple of pigs feet waiting for use and a bag full of sloes.

I had the partridge this evening.

A couple of potatoes were peeled and sliced into rounds before being fried in hot oil in a pan. I had a couple of small quinces left over from a friend’s garden and they were peeled and chopped up and added to the potatoes with plenty of salt and pepper. The pan then went into a hot oven whilst a kids tea of noodles and chicken was cooked, eaten and dispensed with.

A single whole partridge was then rested on top of the potatoes and put back into the oven for 40 minutes.

It came out well – the mild gamey flavour of the partridge against the crisp salt of the potatoes and the hint of autumn sweetness from the quince. I ate it listening to dodgy early 1990’s US new wave from a band called Lotion.  They were almost as good as the partridge.

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This year I have been dilatory when it comes to the brewing of beer. Last year for Christmas I made a fine forty pints which were gone by New Years Eve and I then made a further 40 pints around Easter which again were gone more quickly than they should have been.

All at once it appeared I had found a use for the cellar other than using it to deposit junk and put the kids in for their parties.

Fired with enthusiasm  I bought a packet of hops and determined to brew my own beer for the rest of the year. I had all the equipment I needed to make it a continuous process with two brewing bins and barrels. I even dug out an old Teach Yourself Book on winemaking and brewing I had bought forty years ago. It went on my bedside table and I looked through the more simple recipes for making beer and thought that I should buy a masher.

But then nothing. The hops stayed in their packet and the barrels and bins were left unsterilised.

I have been making up for lost time tonight. I had hoped that the house would be filled with the smell of curing hops by now.That didn’t quite happen but there was enough pungency about them to suggest they will add a good kick of flavour.

It may not be ready by Christmas but it still has the potential to all be gone by New Years Eve!

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