Christmas

Once I'd opened my stocking and recovered from my hangover, Christmas morning began to look a little bit easier to deal with. I spent a lovely day roasting boar, drinking bubbly, munching on smoked salmon and opening a multitude of presents. It was a wonderfully relaxed day, with the food turning out tasty, the company cheery and the required silence through Dr Who.



On Boxing Day I woke up full of cold, something which I haven't yet managed to shift. Tom drove us out to my parents where we munched our way through goulash, whilst keeping myself breathing with the help of a stiff gin and tonic. It was another lovely relaxed day, with the usual banter and yet more fab presents. Unfortunately though, by five I was beginning to flag and so we came back to Brighton and curled up on the sofa to end Christmas with a quiet night in and a couple of glasses of wine.

It was lovely to catch up with friends and family and despite cooking for people, it was all thoroughly calm and unpressured. All the presents I recieved were wonderful and very thoughtful, and it has been so lovely to just spend time with my boy. I just hope I'm feeling better for New Years...

phew!

I've wrapped all the presents, I've put up the tree, I've put the tree up again once the cats had knocked it down, I've cleared the dust and cleared more dust from the plasterers and I've finished work until next year.


Tomorrow I'm going to pick up the joint of wild boar ready for marianading. I will
do this for approx 48 hours with red wine, ginger, chilli, bay leaves, garlic and onion and will also use this mix as a baste whilst I slow roast it on Monday. I'm then going to make the Biscuit Tortoni for the dessert, a frozen mixture of sherry, cream and biscuit that was my favourite for a number of years. I'm really looking forward to cooking again, having not had time to make anything resembling a proper meal for weeks now. The days of catching up on our working day over the oven have been few and far between and I've really missed the joy I get from concocting something heavenly.

I'm so looking forward to relaxing for the next week and a half. Christmas Day will be lovely and relaxed, and after that we're off to Mum & Dad's for Boxing Day. Lyndsey and I are off to the ballet on Wednesday evening and that is all I have planned until New Years Eve. It's such a wonderful feeling to know that I don't need to do anything for days on end.