Results matching “Christmas”

Yesterday I started to get into the Christmas spirit at last. We only returned from holiday on Wednesday night, and I was not feeling my best for the couple of days afterwards. Thankfully, I was feeling a bit better yesterday (even though I still feel like hibernating). I managed to write some Christmas cards and go out for my pre-booked Christmas afternoon tea at Emmeline's Lounge in Conrad St. James.

Emmeline's Lounge was decorated for the holidays with a large decorated tree as a centrepiece in the room. As we started to look at the afternoon tea menu, a small group of carollers entered the room and started to sing Christmas carols. We were sat next to the decorated tree. We sipped our unlimited champagne and listened to the carols.

The savouries were brought out to us onto three tiers. The top tier included brussel sprout salad, served in shot glasses. This was a puree with a cream cheese and brussel sprout taste, and it had quite a strong flavour. The plate also included turkey ballotine (turkey meat formed around stuffing) with cranberry on the side and venison parcels in pastry.

The next tier included the sandwiches: smoked salmon and lemon creme fraiche, beetroot and spinach, and gammon with mustard.

The third tier included four scones wrapped in a fabric napkin. The two scone flavours were orange and cranberry and Christmas spice. These were served with the traditional clotted cream and strawberry jams, but an additional preserve of blackberry curd was included. The scones tasted lovely and fresh.

I cannot forget to mention the tea. I had the Darjeeling tea, which is an easy-going black tea. This was served loose-leaf (the only way one should have tea, in my opinion), and came with a strainer.

After we had finished the savouries and got seconds of some of it, we were finally rewarded with our winter dessert scene. This was carried over to us in a frosted window display over a sheet of slate that contained the edible winterscape. I took quite a few photographs.

When the frosted 'window' was removed, we could take a glimpse at the edible cakes and pastries. They included meringue snowmen, winter berry Christmas tree, white forest yule logs, snowflake ginger macaroons, chocolate and orange battenberg presents, and Christmas postcard marshmallows.

The Christmas tree was my favourite. It was made of berry sorbet and had the richest chocolate 'brownie' base that I've had in a long time. This was delicious. The marshmallows and macaroons were lovely too. I almost forgot to mention this, but the snow that the pastries are sat in and around was also edible and formed of meringue and silver and gold chocolate pieces.

We had a lovely time at Emmeline's Lounge at Conrad St. James, and the Christmas carols and everything made us feel really special. This is one of the best afternoon tea experiences that I have had yet, and it put us in a Christmas mood.

Every Christmas for the past few years, Covent Garden brings us a themed Lego sculpture. This year's Lego is a full-sized Santa, sleigh, and nine reindeer (including Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer). The Lego sculpture in Covent Garden always proves to be popular with visitors to the area. This year's Lego sculpture was created by Duncan Titmarsh, and it took 700,000 bricks and thirty days to complete.

There's even a seat next to Santa so that visitors can sit next to him and get photographs to upload to social media. Visitors are asked to publish their "selfie" photographs to #LEGOsleigh on social media.

The Lego Christmas sculptures will be on display until the 29th of December. Make sure to walk around the sleigh; the gifts in the back of the sleigh are also all made of Lego. 

Last year, visitors could walk through a large snowglobe filled with London monuments made from Lego and the year before, a large Lego advent calendar allowed a 'window' to open up each day to display a surprise Lego Christmas sculpture.  

Thanksgiving was a week ago today. This year, I decided to try something different and go out for Thanksgiving lunch. I reserved a table at Christopher's Grill and Bar in Covent Garden for midday, and we arrived after having a quick look around some of the shops and the Christmas displays. When we arrived, our table was not quite ready for us, so we were seated in the Martini Bar.

The Martini Bar is impressive and a wall of windows lets in a lot of natural light. Each table had a gold mini pumpkin, which I thought was cute.

While we waited for our table, we ordered a couple of cocktails. As it was Thanksgiving, they had a couple of special cocktails on the menu. My partner had the Cranberry Martini, and I had an Apple Pie Martini. The Cranberry Martini contains Vanilla Vodka, Limoncello, Chambord, Ginger Syrup and cranberry juice. 

The Apple Pie Martini contains cinnamon-infused Zubrowka Vodka and fresh apple and maple syrup. I had a taste of the Cranberry Martini, but I much preferred the Apple Pie Martini. It did taste like apple pie. It was delicious, and I would have quite happily had a few more of those had they not been £11.00 a glass.

I watched the staff make our cocktails, and they were delivered to our table (below).

We were then shown to our table upstairs in the dining room. We walked up a spiral staircase with an impressive light/sculpture suspended from the ceiling. 

We were shown our table at the back of the room. (Unfortunately, they would not let us sit by the window, even though the window tables were empty during the duration of our stay; I prefer the window seats as food and drink photographs better in natural light and lack of lighting makes the images look a little grainy.) I was surprised that the restaurant was not nearly as busy as I was expecting. We were the first to arrive and be seated, and by the end of our meal at 13:30, only three or four additional tables were occupied. Many of them were couples like us, but the largest group contained six people.

We were served a choice of bread while we waited, and we had a choice of plain or herb butter to spread. While we waited, I ordered another cocktail, the Hollywood Star. It contains Vodka, apricot liquer, vanilla sugar syrup, lemon and pineapple juice, cherry syrup, and star fruit. Real vanilla beans were used, and you can see them floating in the cocktail photograph below. This also tasted nice, and it set me back £12.00.

Cocktail - Hollywood Star

Our starters arrived. My partner had the Maryland crab cake with rocket salad and red pepper mayonnaise. I had the roast corn and chorizo chowder, which had a vegetarian option that I ordered but failed to arrive as the vegetarian option. Despite this and pushing the chorizo aside, the chowder tasted lovely.

Crab cakes and roast corn chowder

After we finished our starters, the main meals arrived. We both ordered the roast turkey, described as "slow-cooked Ballotine of organic turkey." This was meant to arrive with corn bread, hazelnut and Michigan cherry stuffing, cranberry relish, buttered beans, and creamed potatoes. It did come with an extra miniature sausage too, but we were missing the corn bread. I asked after the corn bread, but the staff did not seem to understand anything and tried to tell me that the stuffing was the corn bread. After some back-and-forth, I think they realised as the manager came over with a plate of cornbread and apologised and stated that it was their first Thanksgiving meal of the day. However, we had nearly finished our meals by the time it arrived.

Turkey and all the trimmings

My verdict on the main meal was that the turkey was a little bland, and I was disappointed overall with the meal. However, we had our desserts to follow so I was excited to see if they could redeem themselves on these. 

I ordered the pumpkin pie with cream chantilly, and my partner ordered the chocolate fudge brownie with raspberries, vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.

Pumpkin pie

For some reason, they cut the crust off my pumpkin pie, so I received the pumpkin triangle slice pictured above. This is a pity, because I do like a little more crust with the pumpkin rather than the little bit of what is underneath the pumpkin. Nonetheless, it was alright but it was not enough to redeem the meal. On the other hand, I had a spoonful of my partner's brownie, and it was delicious.

Chocolate fudge brownie

While I enjoyed aspects of the meal at Christopher's Bar and Grill in Covent Garden, I thought that the price was expensive for what we received. I was not impressed with the main meal, and the staff did not seem to be as responsive as I would have hoped as I had paid quite a bit, and they did not understand the menu. The cocktails (especially the Apple Pie Martini) were quite good but also expensive, and the desserts also tasted nice. Would I go back? I would go back for cocktails and a dessert, but I would not rush back and would not have another meal there.

After our Thanksgiving meal, we went across London to Hyde Park Corner to go to Winter Wonderland. My verdict on the day was that I had fun doing something a little different on Thanksgiving this year, even if it my expectations were not met.

Happy Thanksgiving. I made pumpkin cookies a couple of years ago, but I did not get around to it this year. Pumpkin cookies are one of my absolute favourites, after snickerdoodle cookies of course. This year, I will be going out for my Thanksgiving meal. I do not always take the day off, but I have done in the past couple of years and have done every few years since I first moved to the UK. (I've actually worked through most of them.) Last year, I went back to America to celebrate it, and that was the first time I have done so in the 12+ years that I have been here.

Thanksgiving is a day to celebrate the harvest. When the settlers arrived, they found the winter to be troublesome and had to rely on help from the native American people. They had the first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Did you know that former president Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday and choose the date as the last Thursday in November? Before that, each state set their own date for Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving was always used to celebrate the harvest and would generally appear in earlier November of at the end of October. The holiday also has religious meaning and the dates of celebration varied. At one point, it was twinned on November 6th to celebrate the fact that Guy Fawkes was not successful.

Variations of the day are celebrated in other countries. I think it would be great if the UK adopted this holiday. Black Friday (the big shopping day after Thanksgiving) seems to make an impact here, and I think that having the holiday would prevent Christmas appearing in October (or even September). It's also great fun. It's two days off of work, having a meal, watching sport or parades on television and then it's okay to start thinking about Christmas.

I was able to watch the Basingstoke Christmas Lights Switch On this year. The date of the switch-on was on Friday, the 21st of November. The Basingstoke Rock Band, Common Ground, and Concept provided some of the entertainment before the switch-on and fireworks display this year. The last time I saw this was in 2012.

Common Ground are a boy-and-girl band that won an award this summer. They sang a couple of their songs and a Christmas song, and I really liked them.

Common Ground

Concept is a boy band from Basingstoke, and they were on X-Factor this year, but they did not get past the judge's houses. Shame! They were really good and better than some of the acts that made it through to the live shows. They are quite popular now.

Concept

Concept

Keith Chegwin was the celebrity to turn on the Christmas lights. Every large city that has a switch-on event has a celebrity come to turn on the Christmas lights officially. Santa was also there, along with the two elves, who hosted the entertainment for the evening. Santa, the elves, and the band Concept joined Keith Chegwin in order to push the large button that turns on the Christmas lights.

I loved the expressions of them as they pushed the large button. This turned on a glowing Christmas tree in Festival Square and set off the fireworks on top of Festival Place shopping mall.

The fireworks were beautiful, and I got plenty of photographs of them.

Thanksgiving Day is in a few days, and the Christmas lights have started becoming switched on since the start of the month, so it's safe to start posting Christmas / holiday posts now.

This year's Christmas Lights Switch-On was better than the previous year that I went to see it. The fireworks were beautiful, and we had some good entertainment and bands. Enjoy.

This autumn, nearly fifty painted bus charity sculptures have appeared in London's streets to celebrate 2014 as the Year of the Bus. The bus sculptures started to appear at the end of October and will remain in their locations until early December. The buses have been brought to London by the London Transport Musuem (and Wild in Art, the company responsible for many of the charity art sculpture trails) to raise money for charities.

Stephen McKay - London Telephone Bus

I spent a couple of lunch breaks and had trips up to London at the weekend in order to track down this bus art sculptures across London! I am showing my favourites here.

Sian Storey - Swinging London

The Year of the Bus celebrates London's iconic red buses. This year marks the anniversaries of different types of buses, and a hundred years have passed since the first motor bus, which carried soldiers in 1914. This year also marked the introduction of the new Routemaster buses, which I saw unveiled at the London Transport Museum three years ago, to London's streets. 

Mandii Pope - Buckingham Palace Bus

Four main trails for the bus sculptures included the Olympic Park, City of London, River (around London Bridge), and Westminster/Soho.

Beth Quinton - Moquette

The Great War was a theme common for some of the buses. Another bus was decoated like Buckingham Palace, and another was painted to look like a row of telephone boxes.

Crispin Finn - Ding! Ding!

I honestly cannot pick a favourite bus art design! There were so many that Ioved, and the bus is a great canvas. More photographs are below.

Sarah Jane Grace - Poppy Fields

Cath Kidston

Damien Jeffery - Rock 'n' Royal

Kristel Pillkhan - Spectrum

Jane Callan - Brollybus

Mini Moderns - Push Once

Srokowski Design - Invisible to the Environment

A large selection of buses

Michelle Heron - Tower Bridge Bus

Detail from 'Travels with Edward' by Valerie Osment

Jenny Leonard - Lord Mayor of the City of Westminster bus

These are not all of the buses on display at the moment. Another trail of buses will appear on London's streets before Christmas, and word has it that it will be based in Croydon. I believe that the bus art sculptures will be auctioned off in January.

I've wanted to give Cantina Vinopolis, located in Borough Market, a try for some time. After receiving a BuyAGift voucher for Christmas last year, the opportunity came up. When we both arrived, we were the first to be seated in the restaurant. After initial good service, the service went downhill as soon as we were seated and I asked which wines were available with our voucher. Now, potentially this could be a nice restaurant as the food is not bad, but the service was terrible.

(Not only was the service bad, but I ordered a bottle of Prosecco and was informed after 15 or 20 minutes that the Prosecco was not cold. Why they didn't inform us of this before we received our starter is another issue. We were told that it would be chilled in 15 minutes if we wanted to wait, and we did decide to wait. I asked for the Prosecco to be delivered before our food, and I was hungry so I overdid it on the bread rolls while we waited.)

We received our glass of white wine after a little too long, and then the menus were taken away and we were given a cut-down menu. I'd already decided what I wanted from the other menu, and I was not keen on any of the mains on the new menu. 

My partner had the chicken liver and foir gras pate with chutney and brown bread, and I had the soup of the day, which ended up being a creamy tomato. The soup was quite nice. 

For the main, I decided upon the gnocchi filled with tomato, basil and mozzarella in a tomato sauce. I was not keen on the meat dishes on offer as they did not offer the spring chicken that I was looking forward to that I had decided to have on the main menu before the menus were removed and replaced with a BuyAGift menu! My partner opted for the duck leg.

The gnocchi tasted alright, but I had an overdose on tomato and carbs. After the bread fiasco while we waited for our bottle of Prosecco (which still was not chilled enough), so I was unable to finish my meal.

I started to feel a bit ill as I had eaten too much. I had to leave some of my main behind, and to tell you the truth, I was not even excited by the dessert by the time it arrived. And actually, it didn't seem like much of a loss. The dessert was not the best. We both ordered the dark chocolate mousse with raspberry sorbet. The mousse was not creamy and did not have much taste. The raspberry sorbet was nice, though.

Overall, I had to give this place low marks on the service we received. I am not sure why they have a different menu for BuyAGift. The voucher is still expensive enough to merit the original menu options, surely. BuyAGift is not like Groupon, where the prices are greatly discounted. 

Have you visited Cantina Vinopolis? What did you think of it?

Halloween is on its way, but it feels as if we only just celebrated Halloween. This week, I paid a visit to the Corinthia Hotel for Halloween-themed afternoon tea. This was only available for the week leading up to Halloween. I last visited the Corinthia for afternoon tea last Christmas (Festive Afternoon Tea at Corintha). 

The Corintha Hotel was decorated with pumpkins, autumn gourds and squash, and various autumn-coloured flowers and berries. The Lobby Lounge, where the teas are served at the hotel, also had a massive autumn display with pumpkins and autumnal flowers underneath the gorgeous dome light.

We were seated and ordered our champagne and sandwiches. Unfortunately, I was not completely up for the afternoon tea experience as I've had a nasty cold all week and I was feeling particularly ill yeaterday evening when we had the afternoon tea. I actually feel worse today. The cold has affected my tastebuds, which is really frustrating, so I am not able to really comment on the selection of food and my preferences as to which items were my favourites.

I had an old-fashioned tea from 1921 called "Bert Firman" and later switched to the standard English Breakfast. We received two fruit scones and two plain scones with rapsberry and strawberry jam and clotted cream.

We made a start on our Halloween pastry selection, which included eight different items.

The following Halloween treats were provided.

• Wraith: Cookie crumble cupcake with roasted vanilla ganache.
• Jeepers Creepers: Chocolate mousse, burnt orange marmalade
• Frankenstein: chocolate mint macaroon
• Trick or Treat: Pumpkin custard tart with nutmeg chantilly
• Hocus Pocus: Lemon cream, digestive crumbles, toasted Italian meringue
• Devilish Disguise: Pistachio chantilly, white chocolate
• Mausoleum: Chocolate sable biscuit with raspberry jam
• The Haunting: Crispy Choux, Cappuccino chocolate

I'm not fond of cappuccino or coffee, so I did not care for that one. The pumpkin tart was nice, and the pistachio treat was also nice. I liked the crispy base. I was unable to taste the mint in the macaroon, and the others I could not really enjoy because of this stinking cold.

I loved the design of the pastries.

Happy Halloween to my readers!

This Sunday was Apple Day at Borough Market. Those who know in "real life" know that I grew up on a farm that is well-known for its apple orchard, and I spent a lot of time picking and selling apples at the farm market and farmers' markets around the area when I was younger. When I heard about this, I decided to pop up to London to Borough Market to see it. 

Apple Day apples - with juice and pears

Apple Day is celebrated in England in October, and the first Apple Day was held in 1990 in Covent Garden. Apple Day celebrates the apples and those that grow and harvest them. The day is celebrated in various locations in the UK, and a typical day may involve apple-related games, cooking demonstrations, apple varieties, apple juice and (alcoholic) cider.

Apple Day

Apple Day at Borough Market promised a service from Southwark Cathedral choir, Morris dancing, The Lions Part theatre group performance, apple-peeling competition, apple tasting of different varieties, apple demonstration and pressing, and the execution of John Barleycorn (a symbol of the harvest).

Apple variety tea towel

Many old traditions surround the apple. For example, the "apple wassail" was recorded as taking place in southern England. The "apple wassail" was a form of blessing for the trees for a good apple crop in the next year, and it was held on the Twelfth Night (twelve days after Christmas and the end of the Christmas festivities). Men would go out and howl (wassail) amongst the apple trees and tie bread to the trunk and branches of the apple trees and pour cider underneath the tree. In Somerset, they celebrated the "Apple Tree Man", which is the name given to the spirit of the oldest tree in the orchard. (For more information about the "apple wassail", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Wassail)

Borough Market bell

I arrived before noon on the Sunday. Borough Market is not usually open on Sundays, but it was in order to celebrate Apple Day. However, not all of the vendors were open for business, and it was already busy. I noticed that many tourists were wandering around, and a lot of families were visiting the market. I watched a man ring the bell, signaling the start of the trading.

Pumpkins

In addition to apples and the normal fruit and vegetables, Borough Market's fruit and vegetable vendors were selling pumpkins and large squash.

Apples were decorating the stalls of some of the vendors as well, such as a cheese vendor and a chocolate vendor.

Halloween-themed snacks also seemed to be popular. Cinnamon Tree Bakery was selling cinnamon and sugar biscuits and skull-shaped shortbread. Soul cakes (a cake made with spices and dried fruit) were meant to be on sale, but I did not see any. Their tradition goes back to Halloween.

Cider and mulled apple juice

Of course, hot mulled apple cider and ice cold apple cider was for sale. For those who do not enjoy the alcoholic variety, mulled apple juice was also for sale. I had this, and it hit the spot on a chilly day in late October.

Southwark Cathedral service

An area of Borough Market was sectioned off, and Southwark Cathedral had their service for Apple Day at the market. There was singing and gifts for the church and a service, but I could not really hear much of it. The area sectioned off was right underneath the railway bridge with trains crossing on the metal bridge over our heads every couple of minutes.

A bell-ringer rings a bell and the procession follows behind

After the service, I went to explore the market, and I caught the procession of the Corn Queen and Berry Man (who goes by many names, including John Barleycorn or the Green Man) and many others through Borough Market. John Barleycorn represents the personified grain harvest and output of the crops (bread, alcohol, etc). The story and character probably comes from pagan beliefs about the harvest, which were then taken into Christianity to help the conversion of pagans. In the folk song, John Barleycorn is executed (plouged and harvested) so that bread and alcohol can be made from him for people to live, and this has similarities with Christain beliefs. (More about John Barleycorn can be read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barleycorn)

John Barleycorn

Other figures share the stage with John Barleycorn and the Corn Queen. During the parade, corn dollies were also present and paraded through the market. These represent the spirit of corn, who lived in the fields until the harvest. These corn dollies were idols created to give the spirit a home until the spring. The person who cut the last of the crop would bring it home, drench it in water, and the oldest married woman would turn it into a shape of a woman.  In some places, the idol was dressed in a woman's clothes and called the "Corn Mother" or "Old Woman". The best parts of the grain are turned into a wreath and worn on the head of the prettiest girl, and the corn dolly is the centre of the festivities. (More about corn dollies can be read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_dolly)

Corn Queen

John Barleycorn and others, including Pomona (goddess of fruit trees)

Music accompanied the procession and after the talk at the stage area; I was unable to hear what was being said as the trains were traveling overhead. 

Music

John Barleycorn was happy to have his photograph taken with many guests as he wandered around the market.

John Barleycorn

After the procession, the morris dancers started to dance in the market. There was a large crowd to watch them. Morris dancing is a traditional style of folk dancing in England. It involves bells and hankerchiefs and ribbons. One of the dancers was dressed as a dog or a dog-like creature. I do not know the significance of this.

Morris dancing

Another glimpse of John Barleycorn walking through the crowds

I decided to stay for the play, "The Musicians of Bremen", which is based on stories in the Canterbury Tales. While I waited for this to begin, I watched one of the actors playing conkers with children and teaching them how to play the game. I do not understand the game myself, but it's basically an English game involving the conker. (In America, we call this nut the buckeye.) The conker is tied on a string, and the objective is to knock the opponent's conker off the string.

Conkers

I saw a couple of the actors posing for photographs near the Corn Queen, but I am not sure who they represented. The woman is wearing antlers.

The play, "The Musicians of Bremen", was performed by the theatre group, The Lions Part. This included the tortoise and hare and fox and hare with singing animals that begin a journey away from their farmer's land.

The Musicians of Bremen

This was really for children, and one really had to be up at the front of the stage to hear as the trains overhead were noisey. This was fun, but I left in the tortoise and hare, and I think there was half an hour left to go. (I stayed for the first half of an hour, but my feet were tired and there weren't any seats.)

"The Musicians of Bremen"

The most interesting part of the day for me was trying the different varities of apple on display. Many of these are extremely old and early apples. The seeds have been kept by Brogdale Horticulture Trust to conserve the different varities. They have 2300 apple types and 50 acres of orchards in Kent, England. There were several different varieites to try, but I was disappointed that the oldest known apple (originally brought from Rome) was not amongst them as I was led to believe from the Borough Market website, and they did not really have as large as a selection either.

Apple tasting

At the bottom of this post is a list of most of the apples on display for tasting. The oldest apples were much smaller than the apples of today, and some of the apples did not have much taste. Many of the apples had softer flesh and were not as crisp. (I like a crisp apple and generally I dislike soft fruits such as plums and pears.) The performers were cutting and handing out the slices and admited that they did not know much about the apples. This would have been better if they did know about the apples or if a farmer was present to discuss them.

Information sheets were located around the bags of apples, so I photographed as many as I could, and this is how I correlated the list of varities at the bottom of this post. 

Apple pressing

After the apple tasting, I watched apple pressing and took some more photographs of apples. The apple pressing was held at a stall that was selling London apple juice. This is a part of the London Orchard Project, which was set up in 2008 to help city people understand and sustain apples and learn how to make juice. It is a community orchard.

Toffee apple

I bought some apple juice and a candy (toffee) apple. The toffee apple tasted spicy. I said my "goodbyes" to Borough Market!

Borough Market

Have you been to Apple Day? Most of the varities available for the tasting are included below.

Api Noir: A 1700s French apple, similar to the "Api" that was found in the Forest of Api of Brittany in 1628. The fruit is very small (a little larger than a crabapple) and dark red in colour. It was popular for wiring into evergreens to make garlands and for floating onto Wassail cups. 

Hounslow Wonder: This apple variety was grown in Hounslow in 1910 and won an award of merit. It is a crisp apple with acid flavour.

Howgate Wonder. A  large cooking apple. 1915, Isle of Wight (England). Has a sweet taste but loses the taste when cooked. Keeps it shape well when cooked.

John Waterer: This variety was introduced in 1920 from Twyford, Berkshire. It cooks to a lemon-coloured froth. It is very tart in September but loses the acidity and froth as it ages.

Saint Edmund's Pippin (or Russet): Suffolk (England), 1875. Sweet, juicy, with dense texture. When it is very ripe, it tastes like "pear vanilla ice cream". The apple is yellow and brown in colour.

Striped Beefing: Norwich (England), 1794. Coarse-textured and juicy. This is described as a cooking apple.

Barchard's Seedling: Putney, London. 1856. Fruit is sweet and crisp.

Mobb's Royal: Australia, 1865. Described as a mid-late season cooking apple. It is pale green with very white flesh. Resistant to disease and keeps well.

Curltail: Surry, England, 1872. A cooking apple. Tender and sweet flesh. Named after the shape, which is enlarged at the stalk and curls around.

Greasy Pippin: An Irish apple, founded in 1951. Greasy fruit, but it is described as firm, sweet and juicy. It is green in colour.

Biggs' Nonsuch: Twickenham, England. Yellow, tender, and juicy flesh.

Shoreditch White: Somerset, England, 1884. Described as having a tender, yellowish flesh.

Knobby Russet: Sussex, England, 1820. Firm and dry with a strong flavour.

Tom Putt: Somerset, England, late 1700s. Crisp and juicy and is meant to cook well. Widely-used in the west coutnry and midlands for cider.

Golden Spire: A yellow-green apple from Lancashire, England in 1850. It is described as a crisp apple.

Queen Caroline: Leicestershire, England, 1820. Described as having a firm but loose-textured flesh. They have a yellow colour. It is a cooking apple used in October and November. Cooks to a creamy puree. (Named after queening or quoining, which is a term used for angular-shaped apples.)

Lynn's Pippin: Cambridge, England, 1942. It's a cross between Cox's Orange Pippin and Ellison's Orange variety. It is described as sweet, soft, and juicy but disappointing. Whatever that means.

Castle Major: A cooking apple for use in October and November. It has deep yellow skin with a reddish glow on the sunny side.

Bloody Ploughman: Gowrie, Scotland, 1883. Crisp and tender flesh and grows well in cold spots.  Large, red eating apple but is also good for applesauce. Mid-September. When ripe, it can darken to a deep purple colour and stores for three months.

London Pearmain: 1842. Crisp.

Chad's Favoruite: London, 1952. A large apple with an intense flavour.

Downton Pippin: hereford, England, 1861.

Marriage Maker: England, 1883. Creamy flesh.

Sops in Wine: Southwest England, 1832. A beautiful apple on a purple-red tree with red-purple blooms. The apple is red, and the flesh inside is red in colour. Used for eating and cooking. 

Brownlea's Russet: Hemel Hempstead, 1848.

Pitmaston Pineapple: Worcester (England), 1785. A dessert apple with a sugary flavour. 

Morris' Russet: Described as a sweet, medium-sized apple.

Mabutt's Pearmain: Kent, England in 19th century. A tender, juicy and freckled apple with a lot of flavour and is used up until Christmas.

Cellini: London, 1828. This was a popular London apple.

Every Christmas, I buy a small hoard of soaps, bath bombs, and bubble bars from the shop Lush. This year, the company seems to have done a little bit more with their marketing and ideas and have come up with some new scents and products. The Christmas products typically come out in October, and I noticed them in the shop last weekend. Not only did they have Christmas products, but Halloween and autumn products were also in the mix. Read on to find out more.

Some old favourites were back in the Christmas display, such as the "Melting Snowman" bath melt, Santa bath bomb, star bath melt, star bubble bar wand, "Candy Mountain" bubble bar, and "Christmas Eve" bubble bar. In addition, these new products caught my eye.

Holly Go Lightly: I love the Breakfast At Tiffany's reference here as well as the glitter and holly design of the product. The product is actually green when crumbled into a bath, and it has cinnamon, orange, clove and lime fragrance.

So White Bath Bomb: This very white bath bomb smells of delicious apple, and this is not a new product. It's possibly one of my favourite bath bombs.

Cinders Bath Bomb: This spicy cinnamon bath bomb contains popping candy to crackle in the water. I normally buy this one every year as it reminds me of crisp autumn evenings in the UK with November 5th (Guy Fawkes Day) around the corner. 

Penguin Bath Bar: This penguin sounds refreshing as its fragrance is of lemon and orange. 

Dashing Santa Bath Bomb: Mandarin and orange. This smelled lovely, and I almost bought one.

Snow Angel Bath Melt: This bath melt is part bath bomb as well. It is similar in fragrance to the Snow Cake soap, which is my favourite Lush soap scent. It smells slightly of marzipan. (The snowglobe soap was a close second favourite of mine, but unfortunately they did not bring it back this year.)

In addition to the bath bubble bars, melts, and bath bombs, a few new Christmas soaps appeared in Lush this year. My favourite is still the "Snow Cake" soap, so I did not purchase any of the others. 

Baked Alaska soap: This citrus-smelling soap uses bright colours, but the round ball-shaped and slightly blue hue with dim colours shining "through" looks like a snowball. It reminds me of seeing Christmas lights in the snow - either partially-covered or reflected. It's a very pretty product.

Reindeer Rock soap: This berry-scented dark red soap has imagery of reindeer etched on it.

Yog Nog soap: This is a creamy scent, and the soap has Christmas imagery (stars and pine trees) etched on it.

Christmas Hedgehog bath bomb: (The light blue and white items in the above picture) These contain shea butter and cocao butter, and they are a little messy to pick up. Thankfully, though, they don't leave spikes in your hands. I was not really that into it.

Golden Wonder bath bom: (The square gold and white items in the above picture) These are also my favourites and the little gift box contains a colourful surprise when it's placed into the bath.  

After buying four items (I was reserved this time) for the bath, we went to Cafe Rogue and had hot chocolate and more chocolate. I could not wait to try out my new Lush products as they smelled amazing. (My bathroom still smells nice.)

The last item that I will mention is new, and it's the "Sparkly Pumpkin". It does not smell spiced like a pumpkin (no cinnamon), but it is a light floral scent. (It's actually grapefruit and juniperberry.) This is actually a nice fragrance for a slightly-chilly autumn evening. The product was also popular as two others purchased it at about the same time as I did, hence the empty-looking plate by the time I got my photograph. I love pumpkin and this time of year, so this was a no-brainer. I've also used it and really enjoyed it.

You can see the four items that I purchased above. Have you purchased anything from Lush, and what are you looking forward to trying the most?