Monday 27 December 2010

Festival confinement

Snowy scene on the river path
All of Christmas Day was spent on my very favourite activities: opening presents, eating, reading books, watching films, eating some more and reading more books. Mr A gave me Stephen Fry's autobiography and I gave him Mark Kermode's book about the movies, and we had each read about half by the end of the day.

Mr A did most of the cooking, despite being ill, and only asked me to do the Yorkshire puddings and open the oysters, which are my special skillz. I volunteered for breakfast scrambled eggs with smoked salmon duties as well, given that I knew he would be doing everything else, and he's not very well. Christmas day food was a triumph, with the roast beef, potatoes and vegetables done to perfection, and plenty of leftovers for the next few days.

Mr A has also been having a bit of a dessert frenzy over the past few days, considering that he's a bit unwell and at normal times we never have anything sweet after the meal. He made junket with the rennet his dad gave him, and then a magnificent treacle tart, and apple crumble, all over the space of two days. We haven't touched the junket yet, the treacle tart is now in the freezer, and I had one lot of apple crumble but he didn't even finish his. He has not yet emerged this morning, and I wouldn't blame him for staying in bed, he really isn't very well. I'm not sure I mentioned that.

The temperature outside has been as low as ever over the past few days, and with a big hole in the kitchen ceiling and an unreliable central heating controller we have been a little chilly on occasion. I haven't actually stepped outside the house for three days, two of which have been fully occupied by this stupid coursework, which is very nearly finished but always takes longer than it should. I'm determined to go for a walk today. The temperature on my PC widget now shows a balmy 3 degrees, and the forecast is for above-zero temperatures for the next few days, so we might see some thawing at last.

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