A recipe for tubercular mince pies which would grace any 18th century costume drama kitchen

I am peering at the screen with stinging, watery eyes due to a streaming cold, and I am sneezing every 33 seconds, and the dripping of my nose would shame a Chinese water torturer, but don't you worry, Isabelle and Frances, about pressurising me to write a new post while I am suffering thus.

No, don't you fret, my dears.  I am sure you are both sitting there with your feet up, sipping mulled wine, healthy and thriving, while you fire off your comments about it being time I shifted my carcass and wrote something.  No, I'm not bitter at all.  I am very pleased for you, that you are not victims of The Worst Cold in History and can enjoy your Christmas holidays without using up enough Kleenex to soak up the Indian Ocean and leave its bed dry and all its sea life flapping about wondering FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WHO PULLED THE PLUG?

I have been making mince pies.  No, this isn't my excuse for not having written a post since early December, although the way I make mince pies (bake 6, eat 4, bake 6, eat 4) could well account for such a mammoth pie-making session.

I discovered this afternoon that making mince pies with a streaming cold makes the whole process far more complicated.  You have a nano-second, when the nose begins to drip, to grab a tissue before you glaze the mince pie with something less acceptable to most people than the usual egg yolk.  [Most? Don't you mean all?! Ed.]  [You ARE Ed, idiot!  You don't have an Ed!]

Any relatives reading this who are due to come and stay and may be offered a mince pie ... I SWEAR TO YOU I got away from the pies just well in time.

Then (to continue with my method for Tubercular Mince Pies) after you've blown your nose, you have to wash your hands again, in the interests of anti-slobness, and washing pastry-plastered hands is not just 'washing hands' as any cook will know.  It means scrubbing away at them with a scourer or a vegetable brush, and then pretending you weren't the one who made the scourer/brush unusable next time the washing up is done.

Any relatives reading this who are due to come and stay ... you are NOT to use this as an excuse not to do any washing-up.

What slaving over home-made mince pies for your family despite being near death does mean, though, is that you feel completely justified in partaking of that well-known medicinal remedy: the newly-baked mince pie.  You deserve some reward for such sacrificial service.

Mind you, I now have, as well as the streaming cold, a missing upper palate, its skin stripped away by mincemeat-flavoured lava.  This is rough justice, in my view, as all I was trying to do was comfort myself in the middle of my suffering.  It was nothing to do with greed.  *coy expression* *annoyed expression at having used the asterisk thing after vowing never to*

The pies are all baked and packed away and will need to be put on a Very High Shelf, just in case any of my family who are reading this arrive on Boxing Day, and wonder why I have bought several packets of mince pies with dodgy use-by dates from the corner shop rather than making my own ...

Merry Christmas to all, especially to Isabelle and Frances, who wrote especially to say they were missing me.  On the other hand, after my earlier venomous diatribe, they may not even have read this far, and may have just unfollowed. *Bites lip in regret*  I feel regret about that, and DON'T NEED ASTERISKS TO EXPRESS IT.

Fran was in such a hurry to find which High Shelf the pies were on that she didn't realise
she was scattering tissues as she ran