A Much Malarkey Christmas

I fully intended to post a story on Christmas Eve as a present to all who visit the Manor. But events overtook me and the story still languishes in the ether. However, once I can prise Andy away from Wii Fit Plus, I'll get him to add it to the blog for me, so if you're caught in the weird atmosphere between Christmas and New Year with a half hour to spend, you can have something to read.

So what of Christmas 2009? Well, it was good! I set off at 7.30 am on Christmas Eve to collect the goose from the butcher. This year, I placed my order on-line, and paid for it back in November. I got 10% off if I collected it in-store. I also to got choose the size of the goose.

Or so I thought.

Last year I ordered a 5 kg bird in store. When I went to collect and pay for it, I was delivered a 6.5kg bird and had to pay more for it than I bargained for. I thought I'd scupper the butcher this year by ordering a 4.5 kg goose and paying for it upfront.

'I've come to collect my goose,' I said to the butcher. Off he trundled to his cold store. He returned hefting a box that looked way too big for a 4.5 kg goose. Well, that would be because the goose with my name on it was 7 kg!
'I've already paid for it,' I said, thinking there was no way I was forking out an extra £25 for something considerably bigger than I had ordered.
'I know,' said the butcher. 'Give me your bag and I'll pack it for you.'

Well, a big goose for a smaller price (don't forget my 10% discount!) was bonus news. Perhaps it was the Universe trying to offer some recompense for the extortionate cost of the HIP we'd just forked out for, now the house is no longer on the market. However, I had to get said goose home and then I had to get it in the oven. It was a tight squeeze last year when the bird was half a kilo smaller.

Christmas Eve was spent trying to keep my Mum upright after she'd had a half a glass of red wine on an empty stomach. We played board games after dinner and I have to say that by this point she proved a pretty useless partner for Pictionary. 

Christmas Day. I looked at the goose, and the available roasting tin assortment, and the size of my oven. Have I ever mentioned I loathe my oven with a passion? It was purchased in a panic when we moved here 5 years ago and realised we needed a gas stove, as the available connections for the electric oven we had already were non-existent. Since then, Oven and I have regarded each other with mutual dislike, even more so since the inner door shattered in my hands a few weeks ago.

Anyhow, this goose needed cooking.

'I can go and get the hacksaw,' said Andy, a tad too eagerly I thought.
'No,' I said. 'I'll get it in there somehow.' I felt that as this creature had sacrificed its life for our Christmas lunch, then the least it deserved was to stay in one piece.

So I prepared it, made stuffing, sent up a prayer to the God of Desperate Cooks, levered it into the largest roasting tin I had, and put it in the oven. I closed the door. One goose leg strained against the glass. The neck end balanced precariously over the gas flames at the back.

'Oh well,' I thought. 'As long as I remember to rotate during the next 3 and a half hours, it should be okay.'

And it was! I am very impressed with goose. Far superior, in my mind, to turkey. It looks far more 'Christmassy'. Far more 'real'. If that makes sense.

Lunch lasted 2 hours.  We punctuated it with a couple of games of bingo, courtsey of the bingo crackers, and a game of 'Spot the Intros 1980s' as Andy finds it hilarious I am so good at this game. He is convinced I spent the '80s glued to Radio 1.

And then an evening in front of the telly. Doctor Who was good in that I got to sigh over David Tennant for an hour, and not so good in that its plot was totally incomprehensible, to a non-Doctor Whoeey, at least. Strictly Come Dancing was fab and made me want to learn to dance again. I had a break when the Royle Family was on to do the washing up and have a shower. I do not like the Royle Family, not one jot I do not. Never got the joke, I'm afraid, of watching a fat hairy Northerner living in an armchair belching and bottom burping whilst everyone around him improves their posture by slumping, but it made for a useful interlude to get practical things done.

And now, here we are, in that odd time between Christmas and waiting for 2010. A reflective time for me. A Wii Fit Plus time for Andy. A 'stuffed up with horrendous cold' time for Heather. And Mrs Miggins has started laying again, bless her.

More reflections to come in the next few days. I hope your Christmas was happy, and peaceful, and full of laughter and opportunity, and that your goose (or turkey, or vegetarian option) fitted perfectly in the oven, even if you had to put the boot of gentle persuasion behind it just to make sure.