New Year's Eve

 

Wow! New Year’s Eve already. Where did this last week go?

New tradition. I opened my presents on Christmas Eve as I knew I was going to be either awfully busy or perhaps incapacitated on the actual day.

Christmas Day. Just Nellybert, Howard and the five dogs.

I managed to cook a turkey to perfection and made some excellent gravy. We had chocolate Pavlova with cherries and blackberries for dessert and, of course, too much wine.

After dinner we sat down to watch Nick Cave and Nat King Cole on YouTube. Howard left at dark to see to his chickens and Bert and I settled down to a couple of episodes of Fargo. We are all caught up now and now have to wait for the weekly dole out.

I fed nine on Boxing Day. We three, four Haribos Swisser and son. There was only one extra dog, Rex, who was so chilled you’d hardly know he was there.

It was a busy day as I had desserts to complete and vegetable dishes to prepare. And… new gravy to make. Secret ingredient – remains of old gravy. Gravy was going to be important as the roast chicken dinner I’d made for the Haribos a few weeks earlier had insufficient gravy and this was very disappointing. They were fighting over the last teaspoonful. Not Zoe, of course, as she was reared on disappointing dinners. However, her stoicism must be wearing off for she was quite miffed to find a plain, day-before Brussels sprout on her plate. I did serve sprouts, sliced, braised with carrots and seasoned with soy sauce and they were good. Even Hannah enjoyed them not realising that she was eating the much-maligned and hateful sprout.

For dessert I served a citrussy, almondy Italian cake (Papa Haribo’s favourite), a baked cheesecake, a trifle and the leftover Pavlova. When the food settled we played charades which was a lot of fun.

The day after Boxing Day was a Wednesday. Ben and Sara called and that is all I remember about that. We watched another episode of Fargo. Bert is obsessed with The League of Gentlemen and is working his way through all the series. He finds it unsettling and scary.

Thursday we had Lulu to stay as her people are going to Glasgow for Hogmanay.

Friday evening brought the young Haribos straight off the train from Derry.

Saturday the young ones and Lulu Netflixed and chilled (in bed) for most of the day. After I’d left them home and had a bit of supper we watched Saltburn. There were bits were I had to cover my eyes. Unsettling. A bit scary.

Today, Sunday, New Year’s Eve has been quiet. Except for Lulu, upstairs yapping her head off because nobody will keep her company in bed. She was in heaven yesterday with Martha and Evie. Hannah is working and Woody still hasn’t worked out how to use the cat flap.

This is the first day it hasn’t been raining for ages. It is almost worrying.

Just now, out looking to see where Woody has got too. I see a flash of white in the hen run and wait for him. He spends a lot of time in there. I hear voices chattering on the road, in a language I don’t recognise and being nosey I wait to see who it is. Three young men walk past the end of the lane, each of them carrying bags of groceries. There are a lot of people from SE Asia staying around here. They looked like they might be planning a party. I do hope so. Somebody has to.

One of my Christmas presents was a collection of short films from Martha and Evie’s dad. The following pictures are screenshots from the films.

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