Helen Jesser Seasons Greetings! The tale of my Yummy Christmas Puddings. Plum Pudding hot, plum pudding cold, plum pudding can be eaten anyway at all. For those that can't stand dried fruit stick your fingers in your ears and sing Jingle Bells! My sister took on the tradition of pudding in the cloth for the big family day about thirty years ago. It was eagerly awaited, eaten on the day and having any left was wishes only. Custard, cream and icecream were all piled on top. Sixpences were saved (being silver) and boiled in the pudding then luck or a loose tooth would discover the find, with joy in the bowl.Ingredients gathered and measured, the perfect cloth and coil of string, and the whole day set aside for preparation and the three hours boiling.The spicy smell fills the room, the floured cloth ready, then the string wound tightly, into the pot of boiling water goes the pudding. Allowing six weeks to hang and dry the temptation to make an early start is unbearable. Each year after an hours cooking out pops the treasure - no fail. My sister having a fall, COVID struck and she went from energetic agile and busy to fragile, suffering and just coping. We all jollied her along and helped out but it would take time and as pudding time grew nearer I could see she wouldn't be up to it this year. So we agreed I would do it for her this year, armed with her cloth I set 2 days aside for multiple pudding cooking. All went well,now the agony "would my pudding stand up to the test?" Only Christmas day will tell!

Helen Jesser 'Tempus Fugens' - Time Goes By. Captain Ashley Francis Silver Oliver was a military man. He fought in the Boer War, in Greece, Canada and World War 2 where in France at Paschendale he was gassed. He never recovered. (Steven Brealey holds his medals.) Richard Fredrick Oliver his son joined the Argyle Sutherland Highlanders when leaving school, attaining Lance Corporal. His regiment was assigned to embark to India when his Grand-mother paid out his Army release to support his mother and ailing father. Political unrest in Ireland and advice from relatives, his Uncle Dick and following his father's death in 1923, he and his mother immigrated to Australia. When WW11 was declared he enlisted in 1940 and served in New Guinea attaining Acting Sargent, for 6 years. This left he profoundly deaf, suffering malaria and severe dermatitis being discharged in 1946 to remake his life with his family in Kyneton, Victoria.