Merry Christmas

I was woken up indecently early this morning by Roger Poopy clowning about noisily at the end of the bed.

Mark usually deals with mornings, but he was still asleep, so I thought magnanimously that since it was Christmas, instead of tickling his ears to wake him up I got up myself. The dogs galloped off joyously into the garden and discreetly emptied themselves whilst I stood sleepily at the back door. Then since I was up and Mark wasn’t I thought I would do something lovely and seasonal and make coffee in bed for him for a change.

It wasn’t until I got into the kitchen and started looking about vaguely that I realised that in fact I don’t have the faintest idea how he does it.

Fortunately I discovered that he had left everything out, perfectly prepared on a tray with the coffee jug and cups, exactly enough water in the kettle, and the tin of coffee next to it, how nice to be married to somebody so sensible.

Despite this helpful preparation I had got no idea how much ground-up coffee to put in the jug to make coffee the way we like it. Also I got distracted by a funny message on Facebook and by the time I remembered the kettle was frantically whistling its head off. After that I didn’t know how much water to put in the jug.

I had a guess and brought my offering proudly up the stairs. Mark woke up then, mostly because the dogs leapt on him, and laughed so much that he could hardly drink it. He said that it didn’t matter at all and it was nice to have weak coffee for a change, but it wasn’t really, I like coffee to be really strong. Obviously it is just not the sort of thing that women can do well and need to have a man about the place.

Once we were up we wandered about drinking pots of tea for ages, in the luxurious knowledge that it is Christmas and that we don’t have to do anything dreadful, like going to work or exercise. We were expecting visitors this evening, since it is Christmas Eve Elspeth and her nice husband John were coming across to see us.

This event did not need me to cook anything much because of it being Christmas tomorrow, we thought we would just do easy things. In the end we settled on brie and crackers and fresh bread served with a huge dish of sausages. This is a perfectly acceptable meal when you put tomatoes and olives on the table and wash it down with some decent wine.

Despite this it took some messing about, and somehow we managed to occupy the whole day pottering around the kitchen cooking things. We had settled with the children that we would make puddings today and eat them today and tomorrow. If we had not thought of doing this we would have had far too much pudding for tomorrow, and it is always rubbish to have stacks of pudding left over. They had asked for pudding with crushed biscuits and bananas and toffee, and an Eton mess.

It is so hard to cook for the children, they don’t like anything interesting if they can avoid it, they like things to be really dull. This meant no crushed almonds and soft cheese in the biscuit pudding, and no cognac or ginger in anything at all.

I made up for it by filling the goose with a stuffing made from cognac and orange juice and onions and garlic and brown sugar. I shoved some sage and bay in from the garden and am pleased to announce that I did discover the spider before it accidentally met a terrible misfortunate blender fate.

Elspeth and family arrived at that very mo0ment, and from here I am far too incoherent to write anything sensible.

We have had a lo0vely evening. They ware the nicest company. We have eaten and drunk lo0ts and life is just brilliant.

It is Christmas.

Oliver has written a letter to Father Christmnas warning him that he is not afraid to shoot anybody unexpectedly turning up in his bedroom.

I should jolly well think so. Nerry Christmas.