Winter warmers

A very hard frost this morning with fog down in the valley when I left to walk the dog. I hadn't noticed it happening, but by the time we left the park about half an hour later, the fog had blossomed(?) out of the valley and was quite thick around us. And still there were idiots on the road with no lights at all! The temperature was stuck at 2 degrees (Celsius).

I was very happy to see that the Old Bat was preparing tonight's dinner - steak and kidney pudding. A real winter warmer, and the subject of a little doggerel I remember from years gone by:

Steak and kidney, steak and kidney, steak and kidney pud;
That's the kind of lovely grub that really does you good!

It really is high up there among my favourite winter foods, along with such diverse foods as toast and Bovril, shepherd's pie (only it's really cottage pie 'cos it's made with beef instead of lamb) and toasted muffins (that would be English muffins).

I never did see a muffin man, probably because they had stopped trading before I was even born. But I did once see a gas-lighter - a man whose job it was to walk the streets at dusk lighting the gas lamps. I'm not entirely sure I remember the occasion, which was somewhere near the Temple in London, but my mother told me about it. I suspect it was when she took my brother and me to London to see Father Christmas in Gammidges or one (or more) of the other department stores. I think Selfridges didn't have FC, they had Uncle Holly instead - but he still gave all the children presents!

Another of those memories that might be or might well not be is of the searchlights criss-crossing the sky in the search for enemy aircraft.  But I rather suspect that's just folk-memory (or fake memory!)