Tinsel Toes Beer

New! Our seasonal Tinsel Toes Ruby Ale is a deliciously dark bitter with hints of Christmas pudding in the flavour. Pours amber brown with a small off-white head. Aroma of malt, nut, caramel, fruit and light Christmas spices. Medium sweetness, moderate bitterness. As you can see, we have some in a small barrel and some 28 33cl beer bottles. Hmm. That might make having a dry January a bit difficult.

Oakhill Family Get Together and Walk

We had a few days away visiting Aunty Sue in Somerset. Aunty Kirsty and Uncle David joined us on the Friday. Thanks, Sue for the lovely meals, conjured up without the use of the Aga... which is dead. We had a visit to Street to see the pantomime Goldilocks...

...at the Strode Theatre.

Naturally, there was some shopping done at the Clarks Village Shops,

...although William and I managed to escape and grab a pasty here before a drink at the local Wetherspoons.

 The pantomime was great! Then it was back to dinner at Sue's, complete with party poppers.

This was our short walk on the Saturday Morning. The footpaths were rather muddy so we kept to the roads and pavements.

Some sights along the way...

 

The Old Brewery, now turned into apartments. 

 

A snowdrop!

 

Ashwick Court and the view North-eastwards from the gate.

Back to Dye Lane.

So Thank-you Sue for a great couple of days!

Boxing Day Family Walk

For our Boxing Day walk we went to Brandon Country Park. Despite the claims on the website to be open daily, the Copper Beech tearoom... and toilets were closed and the Walled Garden locked. Luckily we didn't need either of the former and didn't mind not seeing the latter. We did the Purple Walk...

The route looks rather more wiggly in places than it should have! Here we are at the start. Sarah is wearing her new Teddy Bear coat.

We saw plenty of fungi.

At first we walked together.

I stayed with the girls while William and Dawn went on ahead.

That was a nice family walk.

Tassel Enterprises Catalogue Published

Today we published our latest catalogue of goodies available from Tassel Enterprises, including Beers and Flavoured Spirits from Tassel Nanobrewery, Pickles and Sauces from Tassel Pickles, Spice from Tassel Spices and vegetables from Tassel Provender. You can find it by clicking the tab at the top of the page or this link.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

QC Blogging Day

Times Quick Cryptic No 1249 by Hurley

Like Mara's puzzle on Wednesday, we have one for anagram fans today, with no less than 5 bits of unscrambling to do - and I failed solve any of them at first glance. In fact I failed to solve lots of the clues at first glance, getting only a handful of across answers on my first read through. Like yesterday's, a bit on the tricky side overall, then, if my experience is anything to go by, although there are plenty of easier clues to get you going. In addition to the testing anagrams we have a lovely deceptive hidden word at 12d and I needed all the crossers for the cryptic 7d, my last one in. Lots of great clues. I'll opt for the thrilling 8a as my COD. Thanks, Hurley! How did you all like it? Oh, and as this is my last blog of the year, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, when it comes, to you all.
P.S. Well it is nearly Christmas, so here is my current favourite Christmas Cracker joke.... How do you think the unthinkable? Answer at the end of the blog.

( Read all about it... )

Christmas Lights

It was dark and raining. "Do you want to go for a walk, Dad?", asked Sarah. Well I needed some exercise, and it was a chance to see the Christmas lights in nearby Kembold Close, where there appears to be some rivalry for lavishness of Christmas Decorations. Sadly, one of the participants didn't have the lights on, but it is still pretty impressive.

We then on to investigate a beam in the sky, which turned out to be from the lighting up of the  Flight of Peace sculpture.... which changes colour gradually...

We were getting a bit wet and cold by now so didn't stop to watch the colours go through the full spectrum, but as we looked back for a last view before we went down the slope of Mount Road, we could see it had turned red. 


It's beginning to seem a bit like Christmas!

Tassel Enterprises Christmas Produce

It's been a busy few days at Tassel Enterprises. Tassel Nanobrewery has a new brew on the go. Woodforde's seasonal Tinseltoes.

It is sitting in the fermenter in a corner of the kitchen bubbling away - to be transferred to barrel and bottles on Boxing Day.

Meanwhile Tassel Spices has been making some more paprika. The hungarian banana chillis were slowly dried over many days in a cool oven. Here they are ready to be processed.

The coffee grinder...

...hadn't been used since last year's paprika, so there is no danger of it tasting of coffee. And here is the result....

More than enough for us for the coming year. In fact we've still got half of last year's left!

And so to Tassel Pickles. The remaining Habanero chillis (apart from some kept to freeze for cooking) were used to make more Habanero and Coriander Sauce and  Caribbean-style Mango Chilli Sauce, as described before.Defying expectations, the Mango Chilli sauce turned out to be really quite mild. Maybe I should have used more chillis!

Our jar of fermented pickles was nicely done and formed the basis of two more old favourites...

Razorback Hot Sauce

Razorback sauceis a sweet southern-US style hot sauce. Perfect with roast pork. Here are the resulting jars being processed in a water bath...

And the final result...

Devil's Kiss Sauce 

This got its name from a family competition to come up with the best name. This is a tomato-pepper sauce that, despite its name, is only mildly hot.

Now they are all in jars, processed in hot water bath and labelled they are stored in the garage ready for use... as presents for friends and family. No way are we going to be able to eat all that ourselves!

Bury St. Edmunds Christmas Walk - Part 2

"Christmas Walks: Monday 10th December and repeated Friday 14th December. Park at Marlows Garden Centre, Hollow Road, IP32 7AP in the additional parking spaces on the left hand side of the entrance. We have permission to park here all day. Please feel free to arrive early to use toilets and/or have a delicious coffee. I've devised an enjoyable, circular 4 mile walk to start at 10.30am from Marlows. It has all my favourite things in it -crossing railway track, country smells, puddles, views of the Sugar Beet factory and bats! We will then have refreshments back at the garden centre and then the option to join me on another 5-6 mile circular walk after lunch using local footpaths around the core of Bury St Edmunds.", said the invite from Joyce. I decided to do it both days!
 
This is the follow on to the morning walks in Part 1, starting again from Marlows Garden Centre. Our route did vary slightly between Monday and Friday. This was our slightly longer Monday route.

Heading south along Hollow Road past St. Nicholas House again, we took a different route from the bottom of Mount Rd.

Here we turned right along Shakers Lane and turned right again across the footbridge over the A14 down towards the river passing the now defunct St. James Middle School...

...into the Abbey Gardens.

...passing through the Abbey gate and through the town, ending up at Hardwick Heath. Here are some of the sights along the way...

 

Crossing Hardwick Heath, we returned towards the River Lark again past the Grindle houses (which just means a small stream or ditch)...

....on Monday via No Man's Meadows...

 but on Friday along St. Botolph's Lane past the Old Mission House.

On the Monday we came across this line painting machine...

...and on Friday found lost of nice new double yellow lines like this...

Recrossing the A14 via the footbridge, it was a reversal of our steps back along Shakers Lane for some, but on Monday some of us added and extra loop through the Moreton Hall area before arriving back at Marlows just as it was getting dark.

You can see a slideshow of more of my photos below (Flash required).

You can also see the photos here on Flickr. As for our route, you can see more details in my MapMyWalk log.

So thanks for the walks Joyce, and others for their company. I'm looking forward to more walking with friends in the New Year already!