I once made gingerbread decorations for the Christmas tree. The tree looked very nice, and very tasteful. Too tasteful. My smelly lurcher, Grommet, pushed the tree over and ate all the decorations, then stood there looking gormless and guilty. It's just what lurchers do. It's a 'force of nature' thing.
Grommet was safely planted in a friend's garden some eight winters back. He was dead at the time, obviously.
So I figured we'd be safe to have another go at the gingerbread, for our small tree that we bought from the BTCV stall at the CREATE Christmas Fair, where the old hippies go for their Christmas nick-nacks.
Things started pretty well...
But then disaster struck, although we did not recognise it at the time. I got a phone call from someone on Freecycle, offering me a bike workstand that I'd put in a request for. But I had to dash off and get it there and then. Katie retired to her computer, and failed to hear the clockwork timer announcing that it was time to take the gingerbread out of the oven.
I got home to smoke, open windows and a really rather upset Katie.
And some very blackened gingerbread.
Making the best of it, we painted it with some white emulsion we'd pulled out of a skip, and then painted the decorations with bright acrylics.
And now we have a very nice tree.
Well, this all looks like much more fun than dealing with the Bristol Evening Post. It makes me cringe just hearing about it, and I'm at the other end of the country. Burnt gingerbread Christmas decorations anyday.
ReplyDeleteWe're fetching the tree, tomorrow. ... Erm, later today.
ReplyDeleteWhich seems really odd for a Jew and Atheist. Still, we have our "traditions". :-) I'm putting a Lionel (US toy train) train alongside it. Normally it goes under it, but this year it's going alongside. We're getting too "not agile" (well, I am) to pretend to be kids, crawling around on the floor!
Sorry to read about Lurcher. :-(
Carolyn Ann
LMAO!!
ReplyDeleteI nearly sprayed my morning coffee over the VDU when I read this...
Your mind works in mysterious and wonderful ways, Dru....!!
Hugs
chrissie
xxxxxx
Think I shall hang my drink can helicopter models from Vietnam over my tree (if I find one), then I can remember this post and chuckle every time I see them.
ReplyDeleteCaroline XX
Now that's how to turn a bad situation good :)
ReplyDeleteJust please don't try to eat them this year :)
Stace
Nothing like a bit of improvisation. They look good enough to eat….
ReplyDeleteAll's well that ends well...After such evident preparation and follow-up, perhaps something edible next year. Meanwhile, luscious polyptych, Katie and Dru!
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas!
Hi, Angela! Yes, definitely more fun than the circle of hell trod by habitual newspaper commentators... and there's still the cake to make, what's more...
ReplyDeleteI'm more of a pagan than an atheist, Carolyn Ann. But (or possibly so) I'm happy to pic'n'mix my spirituality. Grommet's death was fairly merciful (if only from my perspective) -he was falling apart. But it was awful reassuring him while the lethal injection went in; he was trusting and I was reassuring him that it would be OK. I don't want to have to do that again.
Thank you, Chrissie. I shall read that as a compliment :-)
I have a picture of you in a foxhole cutting up beercans into helicopters as NVA shells whistle overhead now, Caroline. Most odd. I must have watched Apocalypse Now a few too many times...
I shall resist the temptation, Stace and Anji. I'm sure Grommet wouldn't, if he were still around.
Hi, Larry! Merry Christmas to you too!
Once (in an uncharacteristically domestic moment) I made some Xmas tree biscuits which were then covered with different coloured icings. They neither looked nor tasted very nice.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the accident resulting in our using emulsion and acrylics was serendipitous; the bright colours are decidedly cheerful. I saw 'traditional' bread decorations in a Somerset pub some years ago. The effect was positively dispiriting.
ReplyDelete