What a muddle.

I promise you that I am not a political person, but the recent governmental plans for the 3 tiers within England have left me so cross. The advice which followed – don’t play board games at Christmas, celebrate outdoors (in December?), delay your celebration till next year – all of this is absolutely ridiculous. Don’t we have a brain of our own? Can’t we weigh up the risks to our families without this type of advice? So we are all in one of three tiers, many of the towns previously in tier 1 are now in tier 3, how did that happen? My only experience of tiers up until now has been of the wedding cake varieties – there really is no other valid use for them. I’d hoped that we might have been told (by SAGE – the 3 Wise Men in my book) that whilst the situation is bad, we must continue to reduce our social interaction with other people. We understand the implications of reckless behaviour and if we are kept informed in a “straight-talking” way, without sound-bite slogans,we could all maintain the restrictive actions needed to reduce infections. So, dear reader, to calm myself I decided we need a bonus recipe to keep up our spirits, Mincemeat Eccles cakes, which are very tasty and melt in your mouth. The full recipe will be on the website later today, but you just need to cut circles of puff pastry and put a teaspoon of mincemeat in the centre. Wet the edges and bring them to the centre to seal, a bit like a fortune cookie. Turn the parcel over and flatten. Put on a lined baking tray, prod with a fork, brush with water then sprinkle caster sugar on top. Cook for 15ish minutes until darkly browned and crispy. What a relief to find some comforting normality in these strange times – a sense of perspective when all around us are either panicking or denying the situation. Be sensible as I know you will and stay safe peeps. Bx