It is three o’clock in the morning, and it is all done.
Everybody is in bed, except Mark, who is in the shower, and I am writing to you. The cats are in the garden hunting rats, and all four dogs are in the conservatory, where they are sleeping off the remains of turkey dinner and a jolly good walk.
Number One Son-In-Law, Ritalin Boy, Oliver and I went over the fells with them this morning, stumping along behind them whilst they wagged their tails and barked and belted up and down, rolling over and over in all the muddiest bits and charging after distant memories of deer.
Poppy went the wrong way and got lost. Oliver and Ritalin Boy, who are youthful and fit, went dashing off back up the fell to rescue her. She did not understand that it was a circular walk, and was trying to find her way home.
She is a good little dog. She was a bit of a clown when she arrived, but she has very quickly picked up the ways of the dog pack, and is trying very hard indeed to do the right things. Roger Poopy got very cross with her for getting lost this morning, and charged after her and bit her ear.
It was an ace thing to do after a massive Christmas bacon breakfast. Number One Daughter took a flask of mulled wine and went off for a Christmas swim in the lake, and when we all got back we had a massive Christmas lunch as well. Then we faffed about for ages with the turkey.
It was late into the evening before we had dinner, but I will say now that the turkey was actually glorious. I do not like turkey, because it is a bird as dry as a bread roll that somebody dropped under the table in a house with no dogs, and as dull as a lecture about table manners, but this was truly splendid. It was stuffed to bursting with all sorts of other birds, and the gaps squeezed full of pork and cranberry stuffing. We managed to eat about half of it between nine of us and the dogs. I am not quite sure what I am going to do with the rest. Mark thinks that we might have it on sandwiches with the bacon for breakfast, but I think I might still have to freeze some,
It has been such a time for magnificent eating. We had smoked salmon and sticky toffee pudding and salami made into roses by Lucy, and the chicken liver pate which was unutterably divine, and cream cakes and chocolates and all manner of everything nice. The vegetables all turned out splendidly, except the carrots which were not cooked enough, although I had stopped caring by then. The gravy wasn’t lumpy and the custard was only lumpy if you think that one massive dollop of custard counts as a lump, and the potatoes and the parsnips were brilliant.
I am not one of nature’s little chefs, and I was pink in the face from the heat and the worry of it by the time it was all finished, and both Mark and Oliver had been being helpful all afternoon. The dishwasher has been operating almost constantly for the whole day. It has been very busy indeed.
I have had some very nice Christmas presents. There were some splendid socks, and a beautiful new glasses case. Lucy had painted a Christmas card for us, which is so beautiful I think I might frame it. There were chocolates and some of my favourite crystal glasses, a game of Monopoly and more alcohol than I think I am likely to drink before next Christmas. I have had such a lovely, noisy, exciting, happy day.
Despite that, Mark is out of the shower, and it is time that it was over. I am going to bed.
Merry Christmas.
