Lovely Day

 How was it, then? Did you take out your rubber stamp and whack ‘CANCELLED’ all over your Christmas Day, as was suggested by the increasingly poisonous and hysterical media of this country? Did you wail and moan about how the day had been ruined, and eat nothing but brussel sprouts boiled for three hours to a flatulent mush and a side serving of dust as penance? 

No, of course you didn’t. Neither did I. Christmas this year was very much like Christmas of last year - lovely food, lovely company, lovely happy vibes. Because it is what we make of it, isn’t it? Christmas Day. And life, come to that. 

I chatted to my Mum, my children, my grandchildren, my brother, my niece and my lovely Kentish friends via FaceTime, Messenger and the telephone machine. We had a couple of friends around to share dinner with us. Dinner was roast goose with a homemade apple, prune, sage and onion stuffing, roast potatoes, roast parsnips and roast carrots with rosemary, thyme and onion, spiced red cabbage (homemade), vegetarian gravy (a homemade revelation!), broccoli, sprouts and peas, Yorkshire puddings and pigs in blankets, and vegetarian mushroom, shallot and red wine cheesy pastry tart (again, homemade) for me. And then followed a choice of my mediaeval Christmas pudding or a chocolate log, handcrafted by Andy, with custard and/or cream according to choice. We all had a bit of both. Except I didn’t have custard because custard is an abomination and merely makes EVERYTHING it touches taste of custard.  I may have mentioned this before.

The TV stayed off until the Strictly Come Dancing Top 25 Dances show (4.45 p.m) and then I became only mildly annoyed at the unnecessary commentary which interfered with the watching of the dances themselves. But my annoyance was appeased when what I considered to be the BEST Strictly dance EVER came in at number 1, so at least they got that right. I lost the will to live during Michael McKintyre’s dire new game show ‘The Wheel’ so I wandered off and had a bath, then came back to be mildly entertained by a festive edition of ‘Blankety Blank’, then VERY entertained by the festive edition of ‘Call the Midwife.’ And that was it, TV-wise. My TOP TV awards this Christmas are as thus:

1) ‘Ghosts’ Christmas Special

2) Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer Go Fishing Christmas Special

3) The Goes Wrong Show Nativity

Everything else has been pants and don’t even get me started on the so-called ‘Miranda’ special - all I can say is I hope Shirley Ballas looks back on it and hangs her head in shame, and that Miranda herself has a massive creativity re-set and returns to her usual high standards of comedy rather wallow in cheap, puerile, tasteless toilet humour masquerading as ‘entertainment.’ Bah humbug! 

A good day, then, this Christmas 2020, and I hope with all my heart it was the same for you.

And this morning I have been tackling what I believe is known in the profession as ‘a bastard of a jigsaw puzzle.’ It’s a lovely picture - a Tiffany stained-glass peacock - but it’s not helping that 85% of the pieces look the same and there is nothing really to latch on to. It’s what is called a ‘slow burner’ of a jigsaw and I may need to deploy my jigsaw puzzle storage board because if I leave it on the table for more than a few hours, les chats du maison will take it upon themselves to either a) kick it all over the place or b) run off with some of the pieces, secreting them in places I’ll never find them or c) both of these things. If I’m REALLY lucky...

Talking of les chats...here they are, captured in portrait, a gift from my son and his family. Flora, I think, looks only mildly irked at being levered into a posh frock and fancy hat, don’t you think?