Yesterday morning was lovely. I met my mum for coffee and a wander around the shops.  I had some important shopping to do for Mr SW19 but no more details as I know he will read this!  Mum and I have started doing this regularly and I must admit I do love seeing her, just the two of us.  We catch up about anything and everything and have a wander together.  It was such a beautifully sunny day, it was warm and the sun was so warm and low in the sky.  Everything seemed awake and glistening, even as I saw on the top of the bus on my way home after a quick whizz around the old German supermarket. I was dashing home to a coffee and catch up with a friend. It's strange when your child leaves primary school, off they go confidently every morning to their secondary school, with their friends.  It's wonderful to see how quickly children adapt to new circumstances and challenges.  As a parent it's also time to adapt to a change, no longer going to school in the morning and meeting up with girlfriends at school. It's really important to me to stay in touch and I think so far it's going well.

I was making christmas mincemeat yesterday. It's a Delia recipe using fresh cranberries.  I had some in the freezer that my neighbour gave me after christmas last year as she didn't want them or know what to do with them.  I had a couple of bags of fairly old mixed dried fruit skulking in the cupboard and some muscovado sugar that had gone as hard as a rock.  Soaking them overnight seemed to bring it all back to life, and after three hours in a warm oven I had four jars of absolutely delicious mincemeat.

I don't know if any of this will be added to any christmas hamper or given as gifts to SW19 Jnr's music or form teacher, I have a sneaky feeling a lot of it will end up in mince pies and in our tummies!

As somebody who loves baking cakes for us to eat and for anybody else who would like me to bake for them, I have been giving a lot of thought to a christmas cake.  Mr SW19 doesn't care for the icing and marzipan on a traditional cake, and I'm not wild about glace fruit that often adorns alternative christmas cakes.  So anybody who has the Nigella Christmas book may have seen the Chocolate Christmas Cake recipe and I think I shall give this a go.  I have tried it as my friend made it last year and it was delicious.  It has stacks of prunes in it, and it really was spongy and tasty, but still a proper fruit cake.  Unlike a traditional cake it doesn't need weeks of feeding so I think I shall make it soon and freeze it, then I can order some delightful golden cake decorations for it when we take it out the freezer.

Right, that's it for today, off to clean my oven!