“Stir-up Sunday was over a fortnight ago!”

Philomena Bucket sat bolt upright in her bed, still half-asleep and not a little confused at the unwarranted intrusion into, what had been, a very pleasant dream.

“Well? Don’t tell me that you forgot, girl!”

The ghost of Granny Bucket was sitting shimmering on the end of the bed, and shaking her head in disbelief at Philomena’s apparent negligence.

“Hello Granny. It’s good to see you too. Where have you been these last few weeks? I thought you’d gone forever.”

The apparition held no terrors for Philomena. Granny had been haunting her, on and off, for years.

“Time means nothing where I am, as you should well know. And don’t dodge the question. Did you forget?”

Philomena’s mind began to clear a little, and the mention of Stir-up Sunday brought everything back into focus. It had always been important for the matriarch of the Bucket family to make the Christmas pudding on Stir-up Sunday. Granny’s ghostly heart still dwelt in that time long ago, back in The Old Country.  For Philomena, however, such a cosy memory was very much a thing of the past, but she could clearly recall sitting in church and listening to priest reading from the collect, saying, “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people…”

It was a safe bet that many of those faithful people in the congregation, not to mention the distinctly unfaithful ones, were thinking that they should be at home, making a start on their Christmas puddings. Not only tradition, but pudding maturation requirements, demanded as much.  The biblical call to stir-up has long been one of those happy coincidences that works as an aide-memoire for those whose interests reside more in the kitchen than in the church.

“Granny, this is Hopeless, Maine. Remember? The chances of getting all of the ingredients necessary for a perfect Christmas pudding are next to non-existent.”

“I never said it had to be perfect,” snapped Granny, “but it wouldn’t hurt you to get up off your backside and pay some respects to an ancient tradition occasionally.”

By now Philomena was fully awake and quietly fuming.

“Just because some hard-up hack, with a quill-pen and a frock-coat, decided to scribble whatever came into his head to pay his debts, it hardly makes it an ancient Christmas tradition,” she said angrily. “Wassailing is an ancient Christmas tradition; burning a yule log is an ancient Christmas tradition; going out and getting well and truly rat-arsed is an ancient Christmas tradition. They all go back centuries. Stir-up Sunday is Early-Victorian, at best.”

“So is most of Christmas,” retorted Granny. “And, when you’re living in a place like this, you’ve got to hang on to whatever you can, or what’s the point in carrying on? Now, are you going to make this blasted pudding or no?”

“Granny, it’s two in the morning…”

“I don’t mean at this very minute.”

“I’ll need to sleep on it,” said Philomena, and pulled the blankets up around her.

“Fine, but I’m not going anywhere,” said Granny, defiantly.

Sure enough, when Philomena awoke some hours later, her ghostly ancestor was still patiently perched on the end of the bed.

“Why is this so important to you?” Philomena asked. “And don’t say tradition; I’m not buying it.”

“Well, it really is about tradition,” said Granny, then added, a little reluctantly, “and it’s about you, too. I don’t want you to be a spinster all of your days.”

“Whatever has that got to do with Christmas pudding?” asked Philomena, perplexed.

“It is well known that if you don’t stir the Christmas pudding, you’ll stay single for the next twelve months, and it would make me no end happy to see you settled down with a nice young man.”

“I haven’t heard that one before,” said Philomena. “Anyway, I’ve stirred enough puddings in my time, and I’m still single.”

“But it’s about intent, girl. You’ve got to make that wish as you stir.”

“And what makes you think that not being married makes me unhappy?” asked Philomena.

“I saw the way you looked at that Night-Soil Man,” said Granny. “And you came so close to tying the knot…”

“Things didn’t work out for us,” said Philomena, her pale face reddening a little. “It was nobody’s fault.”

“It might have gone better if you’d stirred the pudding last year,” said Granny, triumphantly.

Philomena looked downcast.

“Think on what I said, Philomena,” said Granny, beginning to fade. “You won’t be young forever. Give fate a hand and get that pudding done.”

“I’m really not that young anymore,” Philomena reflected sadly, but kept the thought to herself as she watched her grandmother disappear into the ether.

To say that Ariadne Middlestreet was surprised, when Philomena expressed a wish to make a Christmas pudding, would be an understatement.

“That’s something we’ve never done at The Squid,” she said. “There are a lot of ingredients needed, as far as I know.”

“We could compromise, here and there,” said Philomena hopefully. “I’ll dig out a recipe and we’ll see what’s possible.”

Following the aforementioned excavation, an exercise which involved a certain amount of foraging through the books in the attics of the inn, the task seemed to be less daunting.

“It seems to be mainly made of dried fruit, which we have,” said Ariadne.  “It won’t be much of a variety of fruit, though.  The ship that floundered on the rocks last year was only carrying raisins, but once the pudding is cooked that won’t matter. I’m sure that I’ve got an ancient pot of mixed-spices somewhere in the larder, and there are a few sour old apples still in the store cupboard. They’re too bitter for most things, but they could go into the mixture. Do you know, this just might work!”

Philomena could sense that her friend was becoming enthused with the possibility of creating a new festive dish for the somewhat sparse bill of fare at The Squid and Teapot.

“We need not worry about the bits we don’t have,” said Philomena, “and maybe, if the brewery can supply some malted barley to sweeten it, and the distillery some neat spirit…”

“That won’t be a problem,” said Ariadne, who had interests in both concerns. “I’m really quite excited at the prospect of doing this…”

Suddenly she stopped, and looked at Philomena

“Oh, I’m sorry. This was all your idea. Don’t let me spoil it for you…”

“I’m not a bit bothered,” said Philomena, airily. “Just as long as I get to stir the pudding mix…”