Festive Fun with... Linda Hill

Today it's my pleasure to welcome fellow blogger and friend Linda from Linda's Book Bag to the blog to find out a little about how she spends Christmas. 

Tell us a little bit about yourself. 
I’m Linda Hill and I blog about books at https://lindasbookbag.com.

I’m an increasingly wrinkly, ageing, woman from the back of beyond in Lincolnshire. As well as books I love my husband, travel, gardening, walking, cats, Bryan Ferry, chocolate, fudge and toffee as well as Bailey’s but not necessarily in that order!

What are you most looking forward to this Christmas? 
Boxing Day when we can have champagne and bacon butties for breakfast without having to drive to collect Mum. And daft as it might sound, I love it when the Christmas and New Year Radio Times is available. I don’t watch much television but somehow that magazine gives me permission to slump in front of the telly with a tub of Roses and watch all the children’s programmes. I make a cup of strong tea, grab a mince pie and highlighter pen and meticulously go through the magazine to highlight what I want to see. I record everything and then about five years later when I haven’t had time to watch the programmes and the same film has been recorded again during the next three years I delete them all and look forward to starting again next time.

Do you have any favourite family Christmas traditions?  
I’m not sure they are favourite traditions as they are great if it’s not my turn to organise them all and less fun when it is, but we have a present from the tree at lunchtime and tea time. Just something small and inexpensive.  It was quite a challenge to organise two extra presents for 14 people as well as their main gifts when we were all together! We play games, all of which have prizes that need organising like:

Guess the Famous Faces – again it’s a pain if you’re the one cutting out all the photos and sticking them on big boards, but fun to do if you’re not the organiser

The throwing game - a dealer hands out cards and then calls the cards with a second pack. There are three gifts that are then stolen and thrown between players as their cards come up. Those holding the gifts when the dealer has used all their cards keep the gifts. We usually have two or three games of this so that’s another 9 presents to think of…

Festive Fun: My Fantasy Christmas Dinner Party by Linda Hill

Today it's my absolute pleasure to hand over the reins of the blog to fellow blogger Linda Hill from Linda's Book Bag to describe her perfect festive Dinner party... over to you Linda.

It’s a real pleasure to be having a Christmas meal here on your blog Sharon. Thanks so much for hosting it today.

Now I’m no longer working I miss a work’s do, although my husband Steve and I tend to have our own ‘work’s’ meal out together in the run up to Christmas and we have loads of Christmas meals with friends and family, with my book group, the garden group and at other social events in December.

Obviously I want you to be part of the group as we celebrate our evening. You’ve become such a good friend in real life as well as through the bloggisphere. I’ve added this little Santa cactus to decorate the table as I’ve managed to keep him alive since you gave him to me over a year ago – or was it two years ago? Time passes so quickly.

It’s a pretty basic menu but as it’s my dinner I can have what I like and don’t often get chance to eat! I’d like to serve cocktails as my guests arrive and mine will be a Mai Tai. As I can’t drink ordinary wine without falling over, passing out or being ill we will just have to have champagne throughout the meal – it’s such a hard life!

We’ll begin with hot baked Camembert with crusty French bread and plum chutney. As that’s quite rich we will then have a raspberry sorbet as a palate cleanser before lamb shanks with roast potatoes, roast parsnips, mixed vegetables, including cauliflower cheese, and gravy. When I was small my Mum made the most glorious jam roly poly and I haven’t had it as an adult so we’ll have that with custard as dessert.

After we’ve eaten we can settle down with tea (or coffee if you must) and mince pies and then I’m going to spend the rest of the evening drinking Bailey’s on ice.

I thought I’d introduce my guests and explain why I have invited them.

My first guest is not an author, but a character and one I think anyone who knows me will expect. It’s Paddington Bear. I’ve loved Paddington since I was a child and still have my childhood books with a few newer ones my husband has bought me over the years. I suppose we’d better add in a jar or two of marmalade to the menu too. I have never forgotten the joy of reading these books. Steve occasionally still reads them to me, doing all the different voices and I was once thrown out of a teachers’ library in Peterborough for laughing hysterically at Paddington Takes the Test! I’d love to chat with Paddington about how he felt when he was helping Mr Curry knock in fence posts with a large mallet and he did exactly what Mr Curry said when he told Paddington, ‘When I nod my head, you hit it.’

My Favourite Book is... by Sophie Hedley, Katie Marsh & Linda Hill

Sophie Hedley from Reviewed the Book

I haven’t been reading for more than a few years so I don’t have a childhood favourite or a book that turned me into a reader. But picking a favourite book was an easy choice for me and that book is The Judas Scar by Amanda Jennings. 

I’d loved lots of books before reading The Judas Scar of course but this is the one I’ve obsessed over the most and recommended the most. It was a step up from all the books I’d read before that were entertaining, compelling and well written. When you read lots of books, the stories don’t necessarily stay with you for that long but The Judas Scar has a story that I still regularly find myself thinking about now. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget it. 

The writing was brilliant and intelligent – Amanda has a great way of hooking you into a story until you’re at the stage you need to remember to take a breath. But what turned The Judas Scar into THAT book for me was how raw and personal the theme of the story was to Amanda and then realising just how much she had put into the book, where the inspiration had come from and how real the subject matter could be. 

It’s the only book that has moved me yet turned me into even more of an emotional mess when I read the Author’s Note afterwards.