Di.Poppitt
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
It's already July and soon we wil see the first Christmas cards in the shops. 
In those days long gone our Christmas always started in October. The table was cleared and an oilcloth put on its polished top, and I dragged out a chair to kneel on to watch the mixing of the Christmas Pudding.
In went the flour and spices, the fat was rubbed in then the currants and sultana's which had all been picked over to remove the stalks. Then the candied peel, which I loved, was floured lightly and added before it was all mixed together by hand. Brown ale was poured in slowly from the jug, and the smell by this time was enough to have stayed with me forever, and when I think about it rolls all my Christmas's into one.
'Close your eyes and wish' mom said, and it took all the strength in that little wrist to stir the mixture. At some point mom managed to slip in the silver threepenny bits before tying up the tops of the pudding basins. first she cut a ring of greaseproof paper and laid it over the top of the pud, if she couldn't get greaseproof she would use paper that she had saved from the butter ration, then a square piece of cotton was tied with string around the edge of the basin and the four corners caught up and tied two by two into the middle. It was then boiled in the wash boiler for ever :!: We ate one on Christmas day, and another went on the high kitchen shelf where it sat until Easter.
In those days long gone our Christmas always started in October. The table was cleared and an oilcloth put on its polished top, and I dragged out a chair to kneel on to watch the mixing of the Christmas Pudding.
In went the flour and spices, the fat was rubbed in then the currants and sultana's which had all been picked over to remove the stalks. Then the candied peel, which I loved, was floured lightly and added before it was all mixed together by hand. Brown ale was poured in slowly from the jug, and the smell by this time was enough to have stayed with me forever, and when I think about it rolls all my Christmas's into one.
'Close your eyes and wish' mom said, and it took all the strength in that little wrist to stir the mixture. At some point mom managed to slip in the silver threepenny bits before tying up the tops of the pudding basins. first she cut a ring of greaseproof paper and laid it over the top of the pud, if she couldn't get greaseproof she would use paper that she had saved from the butter ration, then a square piece of cotton was tied with string around the edge of the basin and the four corners caught up and tied two by two into the middle. It was then boiled in the wash boiler for ever :!: We ate one on Christmas day, and another went on the high kitchen shelf where it sat until Easter.
