My Christmas

Just got back from a week spent in Malvern for christmas. Had a lovely time. Last week I went out with some of my old colleagues on their xmas do, then met up with my mum, dad and sister to stay at 'The Forge' cottage in Hanley Swan (below)The Forge is in Hanley Swan, just down Gilberts end. It really is a lovely place to spend christmas
They even put you a tree up, so technically, you don't have to bother putting one up at home!
The fire plave is great! I have decided that Im going to build one in my living room and get a wood burning stove. They seem to give more heat that an open coal fire.

Christmas dinner turned out to be a little bit fraught. I think the writer of 'The Vicar of Dibley' might want to borrow this plot, because it was certainly a lot more funny than the tripe I had to sit through over xmas.

Anyway, my dad always does the christmas dinner, but as I have mentioned before on this blog, I think senility is setting in.

My dad got the turkey ready and put the oven on. Just before we set off for our usual xmas drink in the Swan, he put the turkey in the oven. However, he realised (in the nick of time) that he had infact put the grill on, and not the oven! It was only when the tin foil caught light that he realised his mistake!

Once we got back from the pub, the boiled potatoes for the mash seemed to be taking forever, which put the dinner back about an hour or so (I think the filament on the steamer is knackered) So my dad tried to transfer them to a pan, but he had already put the butter in. Of course, he spilt quite a bit of the water and got it all up his new trousers :-) Of course, there were a few 'Jesus Christs' eminating from the kitchen, along with the odd 'F*&kin B@$%^&*%s' I went into the kitchen to help out....

I boiled them up and put them in a bowl to enable my dad to mash them. However, he got a bit carried away, and ended up getting the buttery water all over his new jumper he had got for christmas!! More choice words followed....I mashed the spuds...

Then dinner was serverd, but my mum was worried that she had the wrong stuffing (apparently cranberries arent good for people on statins for the cholestorol). It was now 4pm

Just as I sat down and had my first roast spud, I heard effing carol singers. The kitchen windows were open, and the two people must have heard my language. I jumped up to give them a piece of my mind, but it turned out to be two friends of mine (Helen & Ian) who had called to say hello, and hadn't quite expected the tirade of abuse that awaited them :-D

It gets better.....

Later in the afternoon as the affects of the filling dinner was wearing off, my sister, Claire, decided that she would cook us some christmas pudding. She took the two puddings out of the cupboard, read the instructions and proceeded to microwave the two of them.

Sometime later she shouted 'Oh no, there's smoke coming out of the microwave - should that happen'

'Yea don't worry Claire, its probably steam'

I couldn't even be bothered to turn my head away from Deal or No Deal. It wasn't until I smelled a horrible acrid smell that I turned around and noticed things were very wrong.

Claire had read the instrctions wrong. Instead of 45 seconds in the microwave, she had tried to do them for 45 minutes! This is the result after around 5 minutes....


I think it just must have been a bad 'planetary' alignment for cooking that day....!