homemade mince pies

Project 52 2021 week 40

It’s been a pretty good week weatherwise this week. Just one day of rain and the rest has been lovely autumn early morning mists, followed by generally blue skies and quite warm. A dffierence from last week.  I’ve been really lazy with cooking this week too – boring repeating of meals because I just can’t be bothered to think of other things, and some days we need to work around tennis training. I really need to use the slow cooker more

Here’s what we got up to this week, week 40 of Project 52.

Sunday was a day of cooking and baking. It didn’t seem to stop because N had decided he wanted to make mince pies from scratch. He’d soaked the fruit overnight, then made the pastry. They turned out really well (although the pastry probably could have been rolled out a bit thinner. He had so much mincemeat left, he made a second batch after lunch. I don’t like mince pies so I didn’t get to taste them, but he said they were good.

On Monday, it was a busy work day doing final chasing around and checks for a huge publication on Tuesday. N was pleased to hear that both he and his friend were chosen as prefects for this year.

In the evening my best friend rang after we missed each other the week before. First time we’d spoken since before lockdown, and it was a mammoth call. It was so lovely to talk to her, although we’re not expecting to be able to see each until probably spring.

Tuesday not much happened other than work and school. N had taken in some mince pies for his teacher, the TAs and the hockey coach because the teacher had mentioned she’d liked to have tried one of them. I love that he’s so proud of his bakes. 

On Wednesday I did a bit more trying on my old clothes to see what fitted, and cleared out a few more items. I need to go through N’s trousers to check whether any don’t fit or that he won’t wear. Next thing to declutter is all my completed jigsaws. They take up more room than clothes, so I definitely need to get organised and sell some on.  N had his private tennis lesson. 

Thursday was a normal work day. I painted my nails for the first time in a lot of years.  I’ve been growing them, having been a nail biter since I was a child. Apart from one little finger, they’re looking good for me, but I wasn’t keen on the mink coloured polish I dug out. 

On Friday it was my birthday. Yay. I’m now in the next age category in surveys though. Boo.  I was woken early by N bringing in my birthday presents. Let’s just say it wasn’t an exciting present day.  The OH and N got me 4 hi ball glasses (because evidently I needed more to replace ones we’d broken –  which I’d already replaced, and because I keep moaning they use too many glasses in a day) and a tablecloth (because ours is ripped and the ones in Dunelm when I looked weren’t wide enough). I did get some lovely rose plants and an Etsy voucher from friends which were nice.  I worked so it wasn’t an exciting birthday. 

It was school harvest festival but live streamed for all but reception parents. I only stayed on to watch N’s class section.

N’s tennis coach has covid again so no private lesson, but he was back to his group session which is with a different coach. Their session is all floodlit now and the fog came in which made it interesting for them.

Saturday was non stop. We had to head into town for the butcher and baker run. We’ve started thinking about Christmas presents but I think I need to shop without N, and we’ve several birthdays to buy for before then. We used my birthday reward in Costa to get a free muffin for N as I couldn’t eat anything from there on my diet. I’m not so keen on their new reward beans because you can only get the beans from drinks, and use them to get free drinks. I preferred the old loyalty scheme where you could use the points to pay for anything.

We got N up the step ladder to pick apples from the tree for a crumble, then had an afternoon playing board games. We’ve not done that for a while, so it was nice to do.

homemade mince pies

New posts this week:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
Love it? Share it

5 Comments

  1. Well done to N on making mince pies. How lovely that he enjoys baking so much and so nice of him to take some into school to share too. They do look very yummy. Well done to him and his friend on being chosen as prefects. Happy belated birthday, hope you had a nice day even if it wasn’t an exciting one. #project365

  2. Happy Belated Birthday. I am very impressed that N made mince pies from scratch. They look very good I am wondering if I am going to make a Christmas cake this year or not. I have started small on the Christmas shopping but I do need to give it a bit more thought as need to get organised. Even if it is just for the boys.

  3. Happy belated birthday to you! Sorry it wasn’t super exciting. Big well done to N for being chosen a prefect! And for baking tasty mince pies. I detest the new Costa system. I complained to them on Twitter, saying that in the past you could use the points on anything, now it’s like any other coffee house, with a free drink after you fill in the beans card. They claim they ran this system as an experiment in some cafe, and the customers’ response was positive. It’s not like they asked a big selection of customers.

  4. The weather really has been pretty good considering it’s October. I was out yesterday with a t-shirt and I was still roasting.
    Good on for N wanting to make mince pies from scratch but it does sound like a lot of work soaking the fruit. They do look very tasty.
    Happy birthday to you!! So sorry it wasn’t an exciting one. x

Comments are closed.