Bread pudding and not doing Christmas

 Firstly, thanks for the info re the trains and buses Sally, we'll pass it on to the neighbour.

I had lots of odds and ends of stale bread in the bottom drawer of the freezer, all different kinds - wholemeal, sourdough and seeded, and a gluten free roll which wasn't very nice.  I thought it was about time I made use of it all, to clear space, so am making a large baking tin of bread pudding today, it's one of husband's all time favourites.  I remember my Mum used to make it a lot when we were kids, a cheap and filling treat for hungry kids coming home from school I guess.  The torn and scrunched up bread, mixed dried fruit and mixed spice are in a large bowl soaking up warm milk and melted butter, the house suddenly smells like Christmas.  I'll add beaten eggs, brown sugar and a handful of veggie suet in a bit.  I don't follow a recipe, just chuck in whatever I've got, I simply do what my Mum used to do - she always added suet to hers but I know some recipes don't.  I think Mum used a mixture of milk and water rather than just milk, I've used all milk (oat milk actually) as I've got plenty of it.  Sometimes we had a piece as cake with a cup of tea, sometimes it was pudding with custard or evaporated milk.  I used to love the crunch of the demerara sugar Mum sprinkled on top, I don't usually do that nowadays, I cut down drastically on sugar due to our diabetes.

Speaking of Christmas, I think ours is going to be very low key this year - well, we don't really make much of Christmas anyway, husband is the world's biggest Grinch and I'm not really bothered one way or the other....with my Mum dying on Christmas Eve and my lovely Nanna on Boxing day it's always a time of mixed feelings anyway.  Husband's grandchildren are all grown up so we don't buy them presents, they preferred money when they were teenagers but now say they don't need us to give them money as they're all in good jobs.  I do like to make a donation to one or two favourite charities at Christmas, and we put food treats in the foodbank bins in the supermarket.  In previous years husband has always liked to have about 3 different roast meats for Christmas and Boxing days - even when I ate meat I didn't really see the point of that when it was just the 2 of us, seemed excessive to me and there was always so much meat left over which I then had to freeze.  This year he's said maybe he'll have a nice steak for Christmas day (he'll cook it himself).....I've not given much thought yet to what I'll have, to be honest I'd be quite happy with a bowl of homemade broccoli and Stilton soup and a toasted cheese sandwich.  One tradition we do still follow though is for our favourite Christmas day breakfast - scrambled eggs with a splash of cream, smoked salmon and plenty of black pepper on sourdough toast.

I'm thinking of not even putting up the tree this year - no real reason except I can't really be bothered!  I have to do it all myself anyway as husband refuses to get involved....I don't mind putting it up and decorating it, but the taking it down and putting it all away and the sheer emptiness of the room after it's taken down makes me feel it's not really worth it!  So this year I'm (almost!) as much of a Grinch as husband is 😂😂

The red scald marks on my face and hand from being splattered with boiling hot exploded egg yesterday are already fading and no longer sore, and the horrible eggy smell has gone from the kitchen.  I did find some pieces of egg underneath the dish drainer when I washed the draining board down this morning, and a lump stuck to the kitchen window that I'd obviously missed yesterday.  Who'd have thought one egg could make such a mess?!