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Domesticity
Dec. 28th, 2004 09:04 pmIt's been our normal sort of lethargic family Christmas, consisting of enormous meals interspersed with long walks. Christmas Eve I shopped, thinking that Oxfam goats, whilst highly virtuous, were the sort of present to my brothers likely to cause every subsequent present from my brothers to consist of parsimoniously small pieces of poor-quality coal of unexciting provenance.
Christmas Day we had Grandma and a nice Chinese lady from Mum's college to lunch; smoked salmon, turkey, sausagemeat and chestnut stuffing, sausages, parsnips, baked potatoes, carrots with sesame seeds and ginger, peas with shallots and pancetta, sprouts, baked sweet potato, trifle, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, a jeroboam of Champagne that my parents won in a raffle, and a bottle of 1989 5-puttenos Tokay. Aside from an exchange of presents, I remember little of what happened after that.
I gave the house a DVD player (to increase widely the range of possible presents for everyone next year), James a pile of books about the decipherment of antique languages and a goat, Ben a pair of trousers, a mug from Niagara falls and a goat, grandma Betty a cuddly moose, a mug from Niagara falls and a goat, Dad David Attenborough's Life of Birds DVDs, a wooden teal that I'd bought at Niagara Falls and a goat, and Mum another mug from Niagara falls and, yes, a goat. In the evening, we watched kakapo and kiwi on the TV.
Boxing Day was a twelve-mile walk around Wandlebury and the Roman roads around it, followed by a large 4pm lunch of cold turkey, cold baked potatoes, cold peas, cold carrots, cold sprouts, cold ham, cold baked sweet potatoes, trifle, Christmas pudding and Christmas cake.
On the 27th we shopped, again. I bought Return of the King, a history of Indonesia, and David Attenborough's Blue Planet set of DVDs. At 4pm we went to watch House of Flying Daggers, and universally found the last half-hour irredeemably tedious. I felt that handing the direction to Peter Jackson from the moment the government troops entered the bamboo forest en-masse would have made a vastly better movie. Then home to a splendid soup made from the gravy from the turkey and the remaining peas and carrots, followed by finishing the trifle and the Christmas pudding.
Today we've had an eleven-mile walk up to the newly-done-up pub at Cleyhithe (sometime when I'm in Cambridge again I should organise a trip there; it's a good length of walk from the town centre, the towpath isn't irredeemably muddy, and the food's good). Then a lovely turkey curry, a blackberry-and-apple crumble, and much lolling in front of fish.
Christmas Day we had Grandma and a nice Chinese lady from Mum's college to lunch; smoked salmon, turkey, sausagemeat and chestnut stuffing, sausages, parsnips, baked potatoes, carrots with sesame seeds and ginger, peas with shallots and pancetta, sprouts, baked sweet potato, trifle, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, a jeroboam of Champagne that my parents won in a raffle, and a bottle of 1989 5-puttenos Tokay. Aside from an exchange of presents, I remember little of what happened after that.
I gave the house a DVD player (to increase widely the range of possible presents for everyone next year), James a pile of books about the decipherment of antique languages and a goat, Ben a pair of trousers, a mug from Niagara falls and a goat, grandma Betty a cuddly moose, a mug from Niagara falls and a goat, Dad David Attenborough's Life of Birds DVDs, a wooden teal that I'd bought at Niagara Falls and a goat, and Mum another mug from Niagara falls and, yes, a goat. In the evening, we watched kakapo and kiwi on the TV.
Boxing Day was a twelve-mile walk around Wandlebury and the Roman roads around it, followed by a large 4pm lunch of cold turkey, cold baked potatoes, cold peas, cold carrots, cold sprouts, cold ham, cold baked sweet potatoes, trifle, Christmas pudding and Christmas cake.
On the 27th we shopped, again. I bought Return of the King, a history of Indonesia, and David Attenborough's Blue Planet set of DVDs. At 4pm we went to watch House of Flying Daggers, and universally found the last half-hour irredeemably tedious. I felt that handing the direction to Peter Jackson from the moment the government troops entered the bamboo forest en-masse would have made a vastly better movie. Then home to a splendid soup made from the gravy from the turkey and the remaining peas and carrots, followed by finishing the trifle and the Christmas pudding.
Today we've had an eleven-mile walk up to the newly-done-up pub at Cleyhithe (sometime when I'm in Cambridge again I should organise a trip there; it's a good length of walk from the town centre, the towpath isn't irredeemably muddy, and the food's good). Then a lovely turkey curry, a blackberry-and-apple crumble, and much lolling in front of fish.
