Tag Archives: Eleanor Cross

Another Day Slips By

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Stamford, Lincolnshire 

I’m sitting at the computer with a hat and gloves on. The heating has gone off and it has become quite nippy indoors. We have a good heating system and adequate pensions, so don’t need to be cold, but old habits die hard. Personally, I would switch the bedroom radiator off completely as we should be warm enough under a mound of covers, but Julia has it set so that at 5.30 every morning I wake feeling too hot. She is often awake at that time too but seems oblivious to the possibility of turning the heating down.

I’ve watched quite a lot of TV, cooked, snoozed and written.

The writing is an article about a medallion. I failed to finish it. The cooking was a breakfast of festive bubble and squeak (using leftover sprouts, chestnuts and roast veg) with bacon and eggs). Tea was potato wedges with beans and cheese and onion pasties. It was a simple meal but still nice. We ate the last mince pies with a  cup of coffee as our dessert. We seem to have missed lunch and not really noticed after the substantial breakfast.

Detail of the Cross

We will not be having a shopping delivery tomorrow as we have built up quite a surplus over the holidays and the veg is looking a bit jaded. It’s not going off, but it’s giving the impression that stage is not far off. I will be preparing a vegetable stew, a Chinese rice and a mushroom curry tomorrow  while Julia is at the tearoom. We will eat one for tea, one tomorrow, and freeze the third. Soup will also be on the menu. Cauliflower and broccoli soup, then leek and potato. Some freezing will be involved.

Then I need to turn my attention to the growing pile of pizza bases and quiche cases. It seemed a good idea to buy some extra for holiday snacks but we didn’t, in the end, have to produce as many meals and snacks as my imagination suggested. I have been better at shopping over the last few years, but this year I did no plan quite so well.

And that was how I passed the third day of 2026.

Now I am waiting. WP tells me it can’t proceed to load photos as the connection has been lost. It hasn’t been lost from this end, so I assume the problem is (again) with the Internet or at WP’s end.

More Stamford.

When looking Stamford up on the internet and checking its use for filming I found it had hosted over 100 films and stars such as Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Elia Kazan, Sam Mendes, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Steven Seagal had been involved. This just goes to show the reach of the USA in its attacks on British culture. Not only do we have to put up with your spellings and, but you also try to steal our town names. Stamford Connecticut is, I’m sure, a lovely town but, having only been founded in 1640, lacks Mediaeval charm. Stamford, Lincolnshire, does have Mediaeval charm and has been the venue for Pride and Prejudice (2005), The Da Vinci Code (2006) and Middlemarch (1994). Pictures are from January 2018.

Fish, Chips. Eleanor Crosses and Eels

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Monstrous Fish and Chips

We have had a good couple of days. We aren’t fully moved in yet, but we have enough stuff in the new house to move in and spend the night.

We had, as you can see, fish and chips. They were actually a bit salty for me (we don’t have added salt but I think they add it to the batter). The portions are also monstrous, so we are going to have to cut down once we move in. One portion of chips and probably one fish will do for two of us.

Julia packed the Christmas duvet cover. Well, I think of it as the Christmas duvet cover. It’s tartan, which is associated with Christmas for me because it is often in Christmas colours and because it reminds me of the tins of shortbread that always come out at Christmas. It is, of course, also associated with Scotland, as is shortbread.  I just looked up the legislation relating to tartan, as it was, I thought, made illegal after the 1745 Rebellion. In fact, as so often with these things, the truth is slightly different. It was restricted from 1747 until 1782, but it wasn’t actually made illegal. having said that, the punishment for a second offence was transportation, so it was probably wise to avoid wearing it.

That’s my book – not the one on the bed in the picture.  not quite as spiritual as the one by Patrik Svensson, but neither am I.

Along with effective heating, the flannelette made for a warm night and by the early hours of the morning we were both too hot (despite the heating having gone off before midnight). It’s unseasonably warm at the moment, but will be going down to freezing at nights next week. Until then we have switched the heating down another notch.

It’s just another sign of old age. I have slept most of my life in unheated bedrooms, often with the windows open, but over the last few years I have started to look at heating, and we regularly use hot water bottles now.

On the way back to Nottingham we took a loop through Northamptonshire and went to Geddington to look at the Eleanor Cross. I think I’ve mentioned them before, which is another sign of increasing age . . .

Eleanor Cross at Geddington, Northants.