Cheese Advent Calendar

When my daughter showed me the advert, back in September, I just had to try it. A different cheese for every day of Advent. Each cheese comes with a description of it and how it came to be.  They make interesting reading in their own right.  The cheeses were delivered by The Courtyard Dairy (https://www.thecourtyarddairy.co.uk/).

There were some amazing cheeses, and some that would never appear on my favourites list. Overall, 'cheese time' has been a highlight of each of the days of Advent in 2024. Here are the cheeses, and my evaluation of each. My absolute favourite (an easy choice among so many lovely cheeses) is highlighted below.

Stars	Meaning
★☆☆☆☆	Not worth it
★★☆☆☆	OK, but wouldn't buy more
★★★☆☆	OK
★★★★☆	Nice cheese, would look for this
★★★★★	Excellent cheese, I want more

Day	Name	Type	Rating	Comments
1	Winslade	Camembert	★★☆☆☆	Expected pinky hue was not present
2	St. Helena	Soft	★★★☆☆	Soft, not too strong,
3	Fellstone		★★★★☆	Semi hard, not too strong, good after-taste
4	Yoredale Blue	blue	★★★★★	Blue, strong flavour, consistent across the cheese
5	Anster	White	★★★★☆	Hard, slightly crumbly, Wensleydale, medium strong, good taste
6	Leeds Blue	Blue	★★★★☆	Medium soft, mild blue, sheep's milk
7	Blackmont Goat	Soft	★★☆☆☆	Mild flavour, the cheese is runny near the rind (possibly suffered in storage?)
8	Yarlington	soft	★★★☆☆	Pungent smell, flavour mainly in rind.
9	Sparkenhoe Blue	Blue	★★★★★	Hardish, blue. Medium strong.
10	Lincolnshire Poacher	Hard	★★★★★	Hard cheddar, with a strong flavour
11	Summer field alpine	Hard	★★★★★	Hard Cheddar, strong flavour.
12	Chevin Goat	Medium hard	★★★☆☆	Italian 'cheddar', with a blue rind. Nice flavour, not strong.
13	Corra Lin	Hard	★★★★☆	Sheep's cheese, good flavour
14	Baron Bygod	Brie	★★★☆☆	Slightly runny Brie, nice flavour.
15	Yoredale	White	★★★★★	Wensleydale, white, not crumble, similar to Wensleydale taste
16	Darling Blue	Blue	★★★★★	Medium strength blue, good flavour.
17	Kirkam's Lancashire	White	★★★★★	Mild, clear flavour, slightly crumbly
18	Beenleigh blue	Blue	★★★★★	Creamy blue, fairly strong
19	Brightwell Ash	Cream	★★★★☆	Mild flavour creamy cheese, white goats milk.
20	Appleby's Double Gloucester	Hard	★★★★☆	Savoury, not that strong
21	Hadfod Cheddar	Hard	★★★★★	Hard, tasty cheddar, with hint of blue
22	Burt's Blue	Hard Brie	★★★☆☆	Good strong flavour, not too blue.
23	Smoked Kalkaber	Hard	★★☆☆☆	Very Hard smoked, smells better than it tastes.
24	Doddington	Hard	★★★★☆	Gouda, hard, sharp flavour

At Little Burstead and the Advent Carol service

This morning I was running the service at St. Mary the Virgin, Little Burstead.  My sermon is here.  Many of the regulars had decided not to attend, so that they could go to Emmanuel, where one of their number was renewing his Baptism vows (by immersion).  As an aside, why is it now 'full immersion', you are either immersed, or you aren't.  Still, there were enough to make a worthwhile congregation, and it allowed me to be a little more interactive than usual. So, the text (if you read it) will be what I intended to say, which is a good approximation of what I actually said. I still find preaching uses a lot more energy than I think it should, and was asleep in front of the TV minutes after lunch!

Which made me later at Christ Church than I should have been.  I walked to church and was quite wet on arrival.  This afternoon I upgraded the 3 PCs in the church office to AVG 9, and I'm pleased to report that it was a straight forward, simple process.  The firewall also works on the default settings — which is a relief.  The 8.5 version had to be switched off to allow just one person to use the main printer!

The upgrade finished JUST in time for me to get to the carol service.  I entered the church from the foyer one minute before the service started.  It was not as packed as last year, but it was well attended.  The service looked mainly at the events before the birth and was centred around 'three visits of an angel'.  Various groups contributed decorations to our giant Christmas tree, there was a school choir singing Little Donkey, and the dance group performed.  Then it was into the hall for mulled Chilean fair-trade black currant juice - but it wasn't the mouthful that description might make it sound. 

Then back home to check on the progress of the weekend's work (at work) and to blog.

Advent Labyrinth @ Christ Church - Sunday 9 December

The church is bathed in a red glow - this is the effect you have in Christ Church at night with just the heaters on and no lights. It's enough for the purposes of this evening. There are lights on the floor - Christmas lights, or candles marking out a large square. To enter the labyrinth, you must first remove your shoes (a reference to holy ground? - Ex 3:5). As you enter the labyrinth there are stones to throw away - to get rid of your baggage - and so it goes on, physical experiences - images, touch, taste, smell, - all the way to number 12. At each point in the labyrinth, there is something at which you can stop and reflect or pray. I found this time very useful, and some interesting memories were re-kindled. Some will have to be dealt with, but God is gracious, and Christmas is coming.

The other side of this is that a tremendous effort was put in to very little effect - for Christ church at least. There were people from other places, but only a very few of our own congregation.

They don't know what they missed.

I'm hoping there will be pictures soon.

Holiday - Day 1

So for the first day of my holiday, I've completed the tasks I set myself! This is a major result considering the interruptions that I've had. So the first part of the Advent notes is almost complete, and the general approach is approved - this is good news. I've updated the web site for links to news letters - all manual still, but I've found some interesting scripts on the way!
The plans for the rest of the week though may not be quite so good. Lets see how it goes. Having stubbed my toe really badly on Saturday, walking in shoes is a pain - literally. That's the left side - the right side is suffering a twisted knee, and walking down stairs is also painful. How did I do it, I don't know, but I was vacuuming the lounge, squatting, rather than bending, and click! There it was done.
Hopefully we're off to see the Were-Rabbit in an hour, so depending on the time we get back, I may write a quick review.

Not so bad

So yesterday wasn’t that bad after all. Managed to get through much of the admin that needs to be done, and spent a while reading the paper.
Today we've been at church - where Pathfinders were supposed to be doing Nativity practice, but as there's no nativity, yet we looked at the story of Christmas - so we were on theme, it being Advent Sunday.
Mike had a late game today, so he had an audience. They were losing only 1-0 when I was phoned, but the final result was lost 5-1. Not the ideal result for a goal keeping debut.
I’ve finished the "ShakenUp!" letter now, so it just gives me a chance to get it out tomorrow morning. I used the open office org's (http://www.openoffice.org/) word processor - just to see what it's like, and because I'm frustrated with Word keep changing things when I don't ask it to. Not bad so far.