When I was a newly wed we rented a house from a very good cook. She was a music teacher by profession but a gourmet by nature.

On one occasion, Auntie Mali had been given some parsley and she knew that Peter had grown a thick border of it, so it wasdecided that she and I would make some wine. We did and, as she said,it had a 'kick like a mule.'

She wasoften cooking or baking and one of the first things she'dsay to me was 'Try this. What do you think of the flavour?'Always, it was good. I particularly rememberher jars of apple jelly, to be eaten with meat, and an ox tail that had simmered for hours, till the fleshdroppped off.

Among the things I baked that she liked was Pwdin Bara, Bread Pudding.

It is saidthat a thin cook should never be trusted and I think there is some truth in it.Auntie Maliwas no sylph but her portions were big.

Recentlya very slim, famouscookdiedand though her recipes were delicious, when she said 'Serves four', I knewthat I would have to double thequantities.

I married a man who never puts a pound on and who always scrutinizes his food before picking up his spoon,but this does not deter me:I cook on.

When cooking, I am very elastic withquantities and ingredients, especially Bread Pudding. I like finding the short cut, too. I have watched people making bread pudding,cutting the crusts off, buttering each slice, layering the slices with sugar and currants, heating the milk, whisking the eggs and so on, till they're fit to drop.

Here's my way:

8 slices of bread (Sour dough is good but the cheapest from the supermarketis fine)

2 eggs

4 ozs (120 gms) butter

1 pint or a half litre of full cream milk

4 ozs brown sugar (120 gms or thereabouts)- honey,syrup or, if you like it, marmalade.

Currants, mixed peel, glace cherries, the quantity can be whateveryou like. Sometimes Iuse mince meat.

A pinch of nutmeg or ginger

Method:

Place the bread in a buttered overproof container and sprinkle the dried fruit over it.

Warm the milk, together with the butter and the sugar and spices. Do not overheat the milk. Beat the eggs in and as long as the milk is not too hot there'll be no curdling (strain the mixture if it curdles)

Pour the milky mixture over the bread and curtains, ensuring it soaks into the bread. Now the dish is ready to go into a hot oven, but not too hot otherwise the top will burn. (I'm not giving oven temperature's because oven's vary.) Cook for about half an hour, unitl it's puffy and golden. Nothing could be easier. Eat with ice-cream, custard or cream.

(Peter says whatI make is Bread and Butter Pudding.His mother made Bread Pudding which was bread soaked in water over night thensqueezed till it wasdryish. A small amount of sugar, a little milk-(not too much)and currants were added to the breadbefore it was baked for half an hour. When ready it was sliced and eaten with butter and jam.)

A variation on my Bread Pudding recipeis to omit the sugar and spices and add a few ounces of any grated cheese you have and cook for half an hour. Eat this hot with salad. I have had it in a restaurant with spinach and onions, too. Mind to add plenty of seasoningand a pinch of mustard.

Iwas visitinga distant cousin in Scotland and had heardthather husbandvacuumed the carpets as soon as he got in from work.

My cousin was a stay-at-home mum with a toddler soI assumedshe might befinding it difficult to get around the housework or maybeshe hadpost-natal depression.

During my stay the two year old had a small party,accompanied bythe usualcrumbs, paper cups, torn wrapping paperand burst balloons.

After it was over, my cousin wiped down the table, sweptthe floor and vacuumed the entrance hall.

There would be noneed for her husband to cleanthis particular evening, I thought,but I was wrong.

Practically as soon as hubby was through the door he made straight for the cleaner,plugged in and zoomed aroundthe place as though his life depended on it and perhaps it did.

Remarking that I couldn't see any fluff or dust anywhere my cousinexplainedthis was her husband's way of relaxing; if he couldn't clean he was tense.

Before they married he hadcleaned his flatas soon as he was home and he liked to keep to his routine. She didn't seem to mind.

I read in the papers today that women findit irritating when men clean the house. Wives aremore affectionate if their husbands get on with stereotyped jobs like changing the sparking plugs orcleaning the gutters.

Where do I stand?

One of my daughters had just bought some new, expensive make-up and hadreceived a free gift of four daintywhitemuslin face cloths. She showed them to me, holding them up to the light, pattingmy cheeks with them. Sheleft them on the kitchen table while she wentout to post a letter, an absense of five minutes or so.

When she came home,the cloths were on the floor, covered in grease, motor bike grease. Her husband was in the garage,

tinkering with his motorbike. I won't go on.You know what happened.

They've been married twenty nine years.

Conclusion: marriage requires a lot of patience and the ability not to let it get to you.

The 'buche de Noel', or yule log, originated on the Continent, but the custom of burning it in the depths of winter spread to Wales during the nineteenth century. Said to have originatedin pagan times, it was considered lucky to keep a piece from one year to the next, tohold on to good luck. Sometimes the log would burn from Christmas Eve into Christmas night, depending on the size and hardness of the wood.

Emma has a wood burning stove and it can easily burn 10 of logs a day. I'd be happy to come across a log that burnt for more than a few hours in that roaring inferno. (I declare aninterest in the stove, because I often light it up for my own enjoyment when my daughter and family are due back from a shopping trip. As they also have central heating, it is not strictly necessary for heat but it appeals to something primaeval in me).

Emma has stacks of logs in the garden but frogs have made their home under some of them. Fortunately, thepine, sycamore and ash trees that were cut down last January in my gardenare now seasoned enough to burn and, I swear it's true, they are better than any that can be bought from the 'log man'.

I sat down last night to watch television and there was a programme about things to make for Christmas.Candles twinkled everywhere and a log fire sparked in the grate.Among the things made were teddy bears (reckon on a full day to complete a tiny one,) chutney, Christmas cardsand a Christmas log.

The log mixture containedchocolate and was smothered in cream and dusted in icing sugar (confectioners sugar in America, I believe). It was all hard work and I speak from the heart.

One Christmas, I made Russian fish pie for Christmas Eve supper. (Cod and parsley in a creamy sauce, with chopped boiled eggs, topped with puff pastry). Emma and Kate (teenagers at the time) said they were going out to celebrate. Peter was not hungry so I ate the pie myself.

For Christmas Day I had mixed cranberries and grated apple into a bought mincemeat mixture (best quality) and placed daubs of the mix into filo pastry nests, no lids, so that they were not too heavy. Yes, you guessed who ate them, me.

When the girls were younger I bought them enamelling kits and candle making kits one year. I spent Christmas afternoon in the kitchen alone,enamelling and candle-making.

At last, I have learnt to give everyonemoney. I'm not mercenary but it's what everyone likes. It meansspending money if you aresurfing inMoroccoand ski-ing in Val d'Iser (Harry and Oliver).Money hastens you on your way tothe Boxing Day Sales (Emma and Kate). Everyone gets what they want because they choose what they want. No longer do I buy something to see it reduced on the 26th.

Yes, moneytakes you to places that home-made teddies and love can't. (The Kings knew this: they gave gold).

As for food, no one's hungry in our house on Christmas Day so I buy everything ready prepared. ( I wasn't born with the word 'Martyr' stamped on my forehead as Betty Friedian might have said.)

I've slogged all year makingfresh food for each meal and if any one doesn't like it on Christmas Day, tough.

So, Merry Christmas and Nadolig Llawen, everyone. Leave the glue and glitter to someone else and I'll try not to scorch my new outfit by the log fire.

When King Arthur celebrated Christmas at Carlisle, he ordered that all the knights and the other high-ranking guests should feast for ten days, starting on the 25th of December. Granted, they did things differently in those days, plus there was no refrigeration, vacuum packs and E numbers, but they were able to keep the food and drink flowing.

Things are done differently in our house. Peter does not like to see the mid-day meat reappearingagain. This means, we buy just enoughfor one meal and have something different at the next.

Althoughwe are not veggies, Peter dislikes handling raw meat from a hygienic stance. (Don't know how he would have survived the cave era).

A certain store has developed a forty five minute turkey (No, it does not mean the urkeyslive for three quarters of an hour only before being 'ready for the table' - I apologise for the euphemism). It means a turkey can be cooked in under an hour, plus thirty minutes extra 'resting' time before carving.

Peter looked unimpressed when I gave him this news. (He's just heard that most cases of e-coli at Christmas are caused by undercooking the fowl. The Earl of Bath, the present Earl's father, once said he did not like overcooked chicken because it was dry, but it's possible to cook a bird long enough to be safely eaten without drying it out. I invert the bird, then turn it over for the last half hour to crisp the breast skin).

But, to return to the 'jiffy' turkey, which is safe to eat, despite the short cooking time.Someone who's cooked and eaten said bird hasgiven it the thumbs down.Too dry and all that.

Whenwe lived in Fishguard our Christmas lunch came from the Gwaun Valley. Free range, plump and delicious, we had a chickenfor eleven years. Now I have a south Pembrokeshirechicken and very good it is, too. A little too large for us, I carve some of it up on Christmas morning and give a 'taste' to the grandchildren when they come visiting.

Stuffing is cooked separately (Peter's preference) but I put a lemonand a bunch ofthyme in the cavity.

I've been wallowing in nostalgia,flicking through Nita Sybil Evans'shandwritten cookery book. At one time, Nita lived in Llangendeirne, Carmarthenshire. Later, the familymoved a few miles toCarmarthen, where her fatherwas a chapel minister.

Llangendeirne lies cradled in the folds of the Gwendraeth Fach Valley. The 1676 Hearth Returns show there were one hundred and two households in the area.

Iolo Morgannwg, writing in 1796, called it: 'the best village that I have ever seen in this county'.

The 1851 Census Return shows that the rural population was heavily dependent on agriculture.

Three annual cattle and pig fairs enlivened the year, untilthey ceased during the nineteenth century.

Even into the twentieth century, Llangendeirne remained an isolated community. Cooks kept a well-stocked larderand relied on their skills to produce good food. Cookery recipes were highly prized.

Nita's Christmas cake recipes begin in 1927, enriched with butter and eggs and fortified with brandy or wine.

In 1946, the year following World War 11, she hasgleaned a recipe froma newspaper. Containingmore dried fruit than her previous cakes, it lacks alcohol. Such a shame!

I lived in Carmarthen in the late 1940's and we ordered our cake in the 'Cunliffe Bakery'in Water Street.

It was magicallookingat therows of pristine white cakes, decorated with fierce robin redbreasts, bottle-brush trees and silver bells, the cake boundand circled with scarlet ribbons. A gold foil 'Nadolig Llawen' gleamedfrom the centre of eachcake.

I lived three miles from Llangendeirne, at one time, and my mind often strays that way at Christmas time.

Llangendeirne Church has three bells dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth century. On Christmas morning they ring a joy-peal that floats across the valley.One of the bells has an inscription carrying the true message of Christmas-time: 'Peace and good neighbourhood'.

I've been allowed to quote from the 1856 diary of Agnes Griffiths, a farmer's wife from South Pembrokeshire. I've said before I finddiaries very revealing.

If mydairies were ever to be published, I would be mortified. I often speak to myself in my diaryand I want to keep my thoughts private (some of them, anyway. Can't remember who said 'If everyman's thoughts were known, we'd all be hanged'). My sentiments exactly.

Major purchases, placesI went during the day are duly recorded.I never writeabout world events or what work I've done on the novel, butI often write aboutwhat my grandchildren do and say.

(I asked Oliver to sit on my knee when he was six years old and he told me I should have a baby because I like hugging people. I was fifty something then, so it would have been a miracle.

He was three whena chocolate melted in the sunand thoughta bee had licked it.

WhenHarrywas ten he told Oliver to 'go to see' to me on the computer.)

And so on. Of no interest to anyone outside the family, at all.

Peter's diaries are in his small, neat hand. (He wouldn't find it too difficult towritehislife-story on the back of a postage stamp, in much the same way as a Chinese calligraphercopied the Bible onto a grain of rice).

Hewrites the dates down in advance for dental and doctor appointments, car servicing, letters he sent and their content.Thirty years of his diaries are stacked neatly in a drawer.The family often ask him to check back to see when they did something or other.The diaries are meticulousand a true record of what has happened.

Agnes Griffiths's dairy reveal a hard-working life. Each week,she bakedfifteen loaves. On Thursday, September 14, 1856,her Christmas preparations began. She made a plum pudding, using sixteen eggs, whichcost two pence each and were 'very dear'.Two geese were killed for market, tocompensate for the money she would have made selling the eggs. All this and looking after 'darling baby Gladys', who was just a few months old.

I love Agnes's diary, for its honesty and for allowing me a glimpse of household life all those years ago.

However, there are certain pompous so-called 'diaries' thatI can't abide. These are not truediaries, but concocted fiction,written for the sake of publishing a book and it shows, of course it does.The fictitious 'diary' becomes a hookto hang a book on.

Irecommend'Lord Hervey's Memoirs', now out of print but you might find a second hand copy. Spiteful, foppish, malicious, keenly intelligent, it is an undoubted treat.

When I was in Cannes in August, I came across an old woman begging on the street. She'd been doing the same thingthe year before. A man, walking ahead of me stopped, took our his wallet and gave her some euro notes. I could see, throughthe loose layers of clothing,thather health had deteriorated.

Afriend's reaction, when I told heraboutit was thatthe poor are always with us, so forget them.

Recently, Emma gave me a Christmas pudding with a crystallised clementine in the middle. When she and Kate came for a mealthe four of us ate it in one go. I liked thesurprise in the middle and the pudding was definitely good,fruity and moist, worth the money.

These puddings are flying off the shelves, though they are not for sale in Haverfordwest, and they cost13.99. Stores that stock them are limitingsales to one per household but, as always, there are ways ofwriggling around this.

'Did you say you're holding a party?Then in that case you can have thirty. Enjoy!'

So, you've run home with your puddings, beaming like a Cheshire cat. Want to makea quick buck? Sell them on the internet for 200 each. It's not illegal, after all. It's called entrepreneurship. The laws of supply and demand prevail and, he who dares, wins, Rodney. Makes an easy profit, too.

I think it was Malcolm Bradbury (of 'The History Man' fame, which I greatly enjoyed many years ago) who said sociology shows the strongwillprey on the weak. On thegullible, too. If I was desperate for a pudding with an orange but couldn't buy one,I'd simmer an orange in syrup, cut the pudding in half et voici et voila.

Oliver and Harrysmiled indulgently and shook their heads ruefully when I told them this.

'It's not the same', they said. No,and it's a lot lessthan200, too.

Authenticity and provenance count, in the boys' eyes:(250 skis 'and that's cheap', goggles 99 'a bargain'). Yes, yes, I know. But, I stillpose the question: '200' for a smallish pudding? Bah! Humbug!'

Not wishingto beScrooge's best friend,I realise people are entitled to spendor waste their money as they like. A recent survey showed that lower and moderate income households give more to charity than higher earners. Is this because the rich are cushioned from the reality of poverty?

Extreme poverty and conspicuous spendingmakefor bad bedfellows, providingpause for thought at this time of year.

We tried a new way of making jelly today.To condensed liquid jelly, bought in a glass bottle, addwater, pour mixture into a saucepan, bring to the boil,simmer for three minutes.Easy peasy, lemon squeazy, except Peter, who was put in charge of the proceedings, said it wasn't. Too much fiddling and stirring was his verdict and too expensive, too.

A block of jelly costsabout seventy pence, but the bottle cost 1.99. We had four generous servings, more thanwe'd have had fromthe jelly block. The bottled jelly took only three hours to set, which was a bonus.

We both agreedthejelly tasted good. ('I should hope so, considering what it cost', Peter declared). I spoonedChristmas compote over the jelly and we hadbrandy cream as well.

Yesterday, as a pudding, we had pears baked in white wine andhoney. I also addeda few cloves to the dish, to spice it up.

Next I simmeredblanched almonds in butter, placed them on a baking tray, sprinkled a few crystals of salt over them and left them in the oven for five minutes.

When the pears were ready, I mixed Amaretto liqueur into Greek honey and served it with the pears, sprinkling the nuts on top. All thisto avoida suetty Christmas.

I wasn't intending talking about cookery now.

I've just heard from Emma and family who are having a Christmas shopping weekend in Bath. Maudie went on the condition she would have a 'three course evening meal' (her own words).

These happy thoughts have led me elsewhere.

InFishguard today, Peter noticed a man he'd seen walking about when we arrived was still walking aimlessly around an hour later. I suggestedhe mightlive in a bed-sitter and had nothing to do.

Thiseveninga homeless man was featured on television and we started talking about the plight of the homeless.

I was approached bya young woman on Cardiff station whoasked if I couldsparesome money for her train fare to somewhere up the valleys. I askedhow much she needed and it was ninety pence. I gave a pound. Alright, she was 'trying it on', buta pound wouldn'tbankrupt me and yes, I know she wasn't catchingany train. She looked around at station staff watching her and told me they thought her a nuisance, but she wasn't, she assured me.

Next, she approached a man inhis thirties whorushed passed her without pausing. She then stoppeda teenager whogave her some coins.

This government is building only half the mount of homes required in this country, partly due to the economic situation. A recentletterin the 'Western Telegraph' complained about the nine hundred proposed new homes that are coming to this town and the writer decided, on what basis, I don't know, that Haverfordwest does not need these houses.

My aunt was the first house off the main road in a small country area. Tramps often came to the door and shepacked a 'cwdin' (paper carrier bag) with sandwiches and whatever she had to spare.

A friend of mine, in Fishguard, has a different tramp callingeach year at midday on Christmas Day and she gives a turkey dinner.

I haven't made a study of homelessness, why people find themselves in this situation, but I do know that it is very easy to become blinkered, when you're stirring the pudding and stuffing the turkey.