A peck of pickled peppers
I’ve no idea what a peck is, or a bushel for that matter. A peck is a small kiss as far as I know. And neither pecks nor peppers bear any relevance to this post. Pickles, on the other hand is what we’re talking today!

In particular, I’m referring to difficulties in sourcing these:

And this:

As Christmas approaches.

Fuck, they’re only pickles, Tina. Get a grip woman!

Fuck right off, they are NOT “only pickles”, they are Hayward’s pickles and they are absolutely essential for my happiness. Without them, the Boxing Day running buffet might as well be a, oh it’s too horrible to even contemplate.

I’ve been known to be running around on 23rd of December, desperately trying to find these things. So, lesson learnt, I try to get hold of big, massive jars of both the mixed pickles and the piccalilli well in advance of the Christmas period. Alas, this year, I was

far

too

late…

Visiting Tesco on Friday night, I was outraged by the absence of Hayward’s piccalilli and the their stocking of only the measly 460g jars of the mixed pickles. I scoffed! There was no way they were having my pickle pounds if they couldn’t have the common courtesy to stock the pickles that I wanted in the size that I wanted.

So I tried to get into the psyche of the retailers and came to the conclusion that the more scummier ones would supply pickles worthy of the name “pickles”. I headed to Morrisons, sure that they’d have shelf upon shelf of delicious vegetable and vinegar-based products. Shocked and a-fucking-palled! They had only their own brand of piccalilli (as if anybody would!) and about three metres of shelf space covering all the varieties of pickled onions under the sun. They even had about a metre of shelf space for olives (olives, in Morrisons, in SWINTON!). But no mixed pickles of any description.

I almost fainted.

Determined to be successful in my quest, I found myself in Sainsbury’s who, thankfully, stocked both the piccalilli and the mixed pickles (small jars only), but also large jars of tangy pickled silverskin onions. I couldn’t bare/bear the thought of fighting with all the fucking mongs who frequent Asda, nor could I risk that pile of crap shop not stocking them either, so I cut my losses and bought them at Sainsbugs. I had no choice, for all I know, that valuable shelf space will be given over to yet MORE mince pies and assorted glittery crap next time I go there.

It’s fucking bollocks, the way you can’t get what you want at this time of year, but there’s so much utter shite available that always ends up producing the biggest “reduced to clear” pile come January. You never see Hayward’s mixed pickles with a reduced to clear sticker on, do you?

I need to get it in my diary for next October: “31st October, 2006 – have you bought your pickles yet?”

As much as people love wearing Dr Marten’s boots, there’s always a certain degree of agony that must be endured during the first few weeks of wearing a new pair. I am currently experiencing that agony and am suffering blisters on my heels and slight rubbing on my deformed little toe.

Of course, the pain experienced while breaking these things in causes the sufferer to have a certain gait. In my case, I walk even more like a dyke than usual, with bounding strides and minimal (restricted) bending of the ankles – a bit like a limp. This transfers to the upper half of my body that kind of swaggers and sways to compensate for the loss of movement in my ankles and the effect that this has on my balance.

Extremely attractive.

It’ll all be worth it in the long run… uness I get some sort of infection in my wounds and end up with a nasty dose of Stephacockaliticus.

Waking early Sunday morning
Having had my sleep disturbed from the early hours by my fucking nutcase cat, I am now rather tired. Instead of doing things that I should be doing (ironing, going the gym, painting that loft hatch in my bedroom), I’m once again sat in front of my computer, pissing about.

Actually I’m sat sort of to the side of my computer and facing my monitor. In front, behind, to the side, my time would be much better served by doing something else.

I shall get off my arse and go the gym I think – blisters and all.

Christmas cakesniffing
It isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (or slice of cake), but the Christmas cake is one of the things I’ve always enjoyed most about the festive period. You know you’ve only got about 30 sleeps till Father Christmas comes when you make your Christmas cake.

For as long as I can remember, we’ve always used the same recipe for the Sniffy cake; I can recall those Friday evenings of my childhood, sometime in late November or early December when mum would busy herself in the kitchen, up to her elbows in stickiness. As the evening wore on, the aroma of warm fruitcake and cooking treacle drifted from the oven and filled the house, as if announcing “It’s Christmas!”.

For the following weeks, up until about a week before Christmas when it got entombed in royal icing, I’d be in charge of supervising the spiking the cake with rum or brandy. It was a huge responsibility ensuring that Mother didn’t forget.

Since last year, when I decided to resurrect that old Farmhouse Kitchen recipe, the baking of the Christmas cake has become a joint effort: Mum does the mithering, while I do the shouting. Somehow, we get a decent cake as the end product , which is a jolly good job considering the effort and the cost of the ingredients. But in an age when it’s so easy to go and buy one of these things, and let’s face it, the quality of the ones the supermarkets is excellent (not including Asda, obviously), there’s something good and wholesome about making one.

Today was the Sniffy Christmas cake baking day. The main argument centred on Mother’s lining of the cake tin, which needs to be double lined with greased foil and greaseproof paper. She made a bit of a cack-handed hash of it and I, at my petulant best, told her it was a complete abortion and that it was going to be shit. But this is the result of our combined efforts:

See how Connie didn’t manage to fit the foil and the paper snuggly to the inside of the tin and how the cake has not filled the shape because of this restriction? An ABORTION! That’s what that is!

Still, it’ll probably be OK once it’s been trimmed down and encased in marzipan and icing. Especially if I manage to sneak a fair bit of booze into it. Not too much, obviously. I don’t want to be getting tipsy and then falling off the wagon in spectacular fashion; finding myself running around the house, eating the entire cake and raiding the booze cupboard for sherry and leftover rum.

The recipe? Go on then:

Making it

1. Line an 8 inch square or 9 inch diameter round cake tin with a layer of foil and a layer of greaseproof paper, lightly greased on both sides (a 7 inch diameter round tin is fine). ABORTION ALERT! Allow both foil and greaseproof paper to extend above the sides of the tin by about 1½ inches. Tie a double thickness of brown paper round the outside (I cut an A4 manila envelope in half along its length and tied the two pieces around).
2. Preheat the oven to 160°C/Gas 3.
3. Cream together the butter, sugar, treacle & lemon rind. (This really hurts your arm)
4. Sift the flour, baking powder, spice, nutmeg & salt. Add the fruit and the ground and chopped almonds.
5. Beat the eggs until frothy. (Beat your mother)
6. Add half the beaten egg and 4tbsp of the flour and fruit mixture to the creamed butter mix, beat in.
7. Add the remaining egg and the rest of the dry ingredients, gradually mixing in the strained lemon juice (if using brandy or rum, add it to the lemon juice). Do not beat, but mix thoroughly.
8. Spoon the mixture into the tin.
9. Place the tin in the oven in the centre of the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 150°C/Gas 2. Bake for 1½ hours. Over the next half hour, gradually reduce the heat to 135°C/Gas 1. If, at this stage, the cake is browning too quickly, cover loosely with foil. Total cooking time should be about 3 ½ hours, or until the cake is firm with no sticky residue on the poky stick. Leave the cake in the tin to cool.
10. Next day, remove the cake from the tin and wrap it in foil for storage (if you have the strength: this ain’t no light sponge cake and it weighs a fucking tonne!). It should keep for several months.

• Am I going to die?
• Will they show mercy and switch off the life-support machine, or leave me a dribbling cabbage?
• In those seconds prior to meeting my doom, will there be opportunity to jump clear of danger?
• Which way should I jump?
• Will it hurt?
• How do I scratch my nose with these big gloves on?
• Can I let go of the grab rail to scratch my nose?
• Where is my nose?
• I wish I could put my specs on properly through this fucking helmet, the side is really digging into my head. I wonder if I’ll remember to put my contact lenses in next time?
• When will the feeling return to my lower legs and feet?
• My shoulders and knees and ankles have seized up.
• This is fun!

So the purpose of this harem scarem adventure? Well, some bloke had really gone to town on decorating his house with Christmas lights and there was a gathering for the switch on. Funds were being raised for the Hospice charity that will benefit from the main Bikers’ toy run and some of the Bikers turned up to show support, along with Coronation Street actress Bev Callard, who was doing the big switch on….

So you see, being a “biker chick” (oh yes!) not only allows you to ride around on a tonne’s worth of vibrator, you also get to meet minor celebrities such as soap actresses, Bob the Builder, giant snowmen AND inflatable Father Christmasses.

Bev and her hubby own a pub and they kindly provided coffees for the bike gang after the switch on. There we were, blocking entrances on a busy Friday night while all the punters were awaiting the start of the pub’s own talent show, “The Eccles Factor” (no lie), when who should turn up as guest of honour? No, not the Pope, it was fellow soap star Bill Tarmey (Jack Duckworth). Whatever next? I might try and wangle a part.

Friday night
It’s been such a long time since I’ve found myself in a pub, let alone a normal (not city centre) pub on a Friday Night, that I’d forgotten what they were like. Lots of women with highlights and tans, all in their best clobber and jewellery, drinking God knows what – what do women drink? Not pints, that’s for sure.

And there I was, in a pub – not a “nice” pub, but a decent, working class pub – on a Friday night in Salford and I was thinking, I could quite happily do this again. I could quite happily go back ten years in time and go to a pub like this, get pissed and have a laugh, maybe even get on that stupid stage and sing in front of my mates and minor celebs alike.

I wrapped myself up in my biker gear, squeezed myself into the helmet, struggled to get my fucking bastard specs on, slapped my driver on his back and off we sped into the chilly, windy night.

Hey ho.

“Bah, humbug!” No, that’s too strong
‘Cause it is my favourite holiday

Happy Ecksmass!
Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays to everyone. Santa Claus is coming to town.

I fucking HATE Xmas, it is meaningless. Any cards or a greeting with “Xmas” on them get binned instantly.

Ecksmass.

What the hell is Ecksmass when it’s at home? Can somebody explain it?

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. That’s how it should be.

Not Xmas, Season’s Greetings, New Years, or Holidays.

If you want to wish somebody a Happy Hannukah, then wish them so. Same goes for Eid, Diwali, Yuletide and any others that might fall at this time of year, but show a bit of respect and keep them separate, don’t lump them under “Season’s Greetings” for fear of offending somebody.

And I’d like “New Years” explaining to me. Surely you only get one new year at a time, so why the plural?

Holidays – you work till the very last minute and get two days off work before returning for that twighlight zone between Christmas and New Year, then you get another day off. I suppose that this one is actually correct over here since this is when the UK gets most of its bank holidays. Unless you’re me. I’m taking some extra days off so I get a full fortnight break from the 23rd December till 9th January. Ho ho ho!

Ho ho NO! I don’t know what pisses me off about “Santa Claus”, but I’ve always preferred “Father Christmas”. I think “Santa Claus” must send me into singing “Santa Claus is coming to town”; although I start off with the Jackson’s version, this inevitably switches to Bruce Springsteen’s at some point, and this automatically ruins the entire Christmas period for me as soon as it happens.

SHITE! It’s happened. Bah fucking humbug.

Shopping with Connie (awwww, bless her) is one of those Christmas traditions that I both enjoy and endure. In recent years, since moving back into the family home, I’ve always managed to get most of my presents bought by the second week of December. Internet shopping, late night opening, good ranges of stocking fillers at the supermarkets, having TKMaxx on the doorstep here; they’re all really useful in providing a relatively pain-free experience…

…Until Mother mentions, somewhere around the evening of the 20th of December, “Oh, I haven’t bought a thing yet, I’ve just not had time and I don’t know my way around the shops.” (she’s retired). So, after an hour and a half of queuing on the roads of Barton and Trafford, after fights in car parks, we find ourselves in the Trafford Centre (big massive hell-hole shopping centre on outskirts of Manc).

Things are generally really nice, lovely in fact: we wander round Debenhams, Marks’s, Selfridges, smelling the latest fragrances, looking at the lovely things; we do really well in finding things that we think people will like.

But there’s one thing that always causes trouble: my fucking brother! He always asks for something that is simply impossible to source in any real shop; this can be a CD, DVD, particular make/type of jeans. This is when panic sets in, Mum enters headless chicken mode and insists on going into every single shop in the entire shopping centre, asking bemused assistants for the weird request of my stupid brother then berating them when they haven’t got it.

Added to the experience is the heat in these places. It being December and fucking freezing outside, you wrap up warm. But all the shops are super-heated and Mother gets a sweat on. I ask if I can carry her coat for her, but she is so focussed on searching (but not finding), that she carries on.

Things become fraught. Mother’s limp worsens, she gets hotter and hotter. I fall to the floor and beg her to give up, saying that I’ll look for it online and that my brother will just have to wait, but it’s his own fault for being a dick and not asking for normal things – the tosser. Admitting defeat, but relieved, we give up the search and go somewhere for a nice coffee and a sit down.

Of course, at this point my poor mum is exhausted and very hot, but the car is a furthest possible point from where we are. I take her to the car park and make her wait while I go fetch the car, she has to sit behind me because she has difficulty in getting into the passenger side.

My mum is an elderly lady and this makes me sad.

But it doesn’t stop her annoying the fuck out of me.

I was a good girl and made her come to TKMaxx with me last night. It was nice and quiet there and she had a good nosy around, bought some nice nick-nacks for people. I think she enjoyed it and I may take her for the big shop next week, time permitting.

Did you ever sit, those rainy Sunday afternoons of your childhood and look out of your bedroom window as the rain poured down, trapping you indoors?

The raindrops combined to form rivulets that cut a path down the windowpane. You’d watch, hypnotised by the repetitive jerky dance of each drop as it followed the route taken by those that fell before, by the sound of rain as it hit the leaves of the trees that enclosed the garden.

Your breath would condense on the cold glass, clouding your entertainment, so you’d clear the mist with the sleeve of your jumper and resume the watch through a streaked and fluffy window; a cold, damp sleeve providing only the slightest distraction from your intense concentration.

Looking at the larger drops as they are suspended, defying gravity, you notice the distorted world contained within and try to relate the curves and colours to your own world. You wonder what it’s like in droplet world… most probably wet, I should think.

Not forgetting that today is World AIDS Day, it is also the first day of Advent.

Advent is of course “the liturgical period preceding Christmas, beginning in Western churches on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and in Eastern churches in mid-November, and observed by many Christians as a season of prayer, fasting, and penitence.”

Here in the UK, this meaning is lost and each day of Advent simply means a little choccie from a calendar for a greedy guts nipper.

I know Herge is doing something wonderful and festive each day in the run up to Christmas, but that doesn’t stop the rest of us having a bit of fun and marking this very special and important time of year.

Each day, I hope to spread the joy of Christmas by bringing you my thoughts on the special, the wonderful, the tacky, the irritating and the plain awful things you see, hear and experience only at this time of year (or from late October if you live in a scummy part of the world like I do).

Day 1 of the Sniffy Advent Calendar is suitably marked by what met me when I got home yesterday evening:

It took over two hours for the train to travel from Nottingham to Manchester. TWO HOURS? It didn’t get above walking pace for any part of the journey.

Two hours (plus 20 minutes to get home from Manchester) to travel 106 miles. PerTHETIC!

How crap are trains? Utter bollocks. That’s what they are.

Of course, our carriage was blessed with the presence of a nutter: young, tall, Asian-looking feller who kept wailing out and sort of singing in what sounded like Arabic. I suppose the language and his racial background are irrelevant, he was just an annoying twat. I made the point of saying “Shurrup, dickhead” at the top of my voice and responding to his “singing” with calls of “nobhead!”. He moved on.

Why do people have to act such utter wankers? And when he was outnumbered by about 30 to 1, why didn’t anybody challenge him? I was on the verge of chucking an empty pop bottle at him when he moved. I might have been done for assault.

“I’m sorry Your Honour, he was a complete dick and he was annoying me, so I threw something at him.”

“GUILTY AS CHARGED! Your sentence is to work the snack trolley on the Norwich to Liverpool Lime St route for ONE YEAR. Take her down.”

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!”

Trains are shit. You have reserved seats and find that they’ve been taken. There are no other seats. Do you a) let it go, b) tell em to shift. I went for b). I’m not taking any fucking shit on no train, fool! “I feel really bad for asking you to move, but these are our reserved seats and there’s no other seating available. You can lean your crutch over there if you must.”

And there’s always that nonsense of travelling backwards too. What can’t they make it so that all the seats face forwards?

Training courses can be shit, but I was on an interesting(ish) one today. If there’s anything that really pisses me off about namby pamby NHS/social work types though; they assume that everybody who uses the health service in this country is: disabled; unemployed; black or asian; incapable of speaking English; illiterate. “We need to empower people, give them control of the entire process. They are the experts and should always take the lead.” Bollocks. I could happily slap these patronising cunts, but I just make it known that I think they’re talking utter shit.

Doc Sniff
My Docs have come. They don’t half hurt for a while when you’re not used to them. Timberlands? Pfhah! These are the real babies. They’re not actually, they’re the greasy black ones with chunky soles and ankle padding. I’m bound to pull in these once I’ve managed to stop limping while wearing them.

Newts, frogs, waterboatmen, sticklebacks, frogspawn.

All pretty disgusting when you think about it. Remember as a child going down to the local pond when the frogspawn had appeared developing? Remember the smell of the pond? Remember how many things you saw that made you go “ewwwwww!”?

I’m going to Leicester tomorrow. I don’t need to be at my destination in Leicester until 10am, but my journey starts at 6.20am because I’m using public transport. Journey there: two trains, changing at Nuneaton. Journey home: two trains, changing at Nottingham. If I set off by car at that time, I’d expect to arrive at my destination, about 112 miles away, by 8am. By train, I’ll be there at about 9.30, having endured germ-ridden commuters and other low-life that I’d rather not be exposed to.

I hate public transport. Well, I hate the “public” bit of it; it’d be quite good to have a whole train to myself.

Of course, you have to be careful what you become exposed to these days. Flu is in the air, colds, coughs, but I’m most worried about Stephacockaliticus. I’ve taken steps to ensure that I’ve minimised exposure to this deadly disease, but Herge is a slapper who caught it after a booze and drugs-fuelled one-night stand with Carol Vorderman.