Saturday 26th December 2015

Friday

Christmas Day

If I am honest, or if I am going to be honest with you, it has not felt very Christmassy this year. Even with having the week before Christmas at home, it has not felt the slight bit like Christmas. We put off and put off the trimming up, to the point it was just too darn late. Therefore, we have no tree in Chez Jelltex, no baubles, no garlands, nothing. Other than ourselves, and us feeling drained after what has been a long year. It is a shame when we go to visit other people's that they have the full blown Christmas spirit, have a tree, punch, garlands, baubles and the rest of the stuff that makes Christmas, Christmas. For us it feels a triumph to have reached this part of the year, and that feeling does not need a decorated tree to celebrate that fact. Saying that, we do love Christmas, we love the feeling of love, not that it needs to be just the one day a year, we hope that we feel such love 52 weeks a year.

We wake up at half six, with the cats milling around waiting for breakfast. We have cold sausage rills and mince pies for breakfast ourselves, that and more coffee. I call Mother, she is fine, she is going to have lunch with friends, and seems focused on that. Which is fine. What is worse, we are going to spend 8 hours driving to Suffolk and back tomorrow, to see her and talk, for what? God knows Being the only child is very hard, as at the end of things, it comes down to me. There being no one else. Over the years I have grown to accept this role that life has given me, not happy with it, but accepted it.

With nothing but rain and wind forecast for the day, we decide to laze around the house in the morning, listening to the radio, and finally getting round to writing in the cards we had bought for each other, until at half eleven, we can put things off no longer and go out to visit Nan.

There is not much yo can say to a 101 year old lady that is too blind to watch TV, too deaf to listen to the radio, and so weak she cannot reach for a remote or glass of water. She wants death to take her, but her body, against all the odds, gets stronger and stronger. However, she is not feeling well, she has a chill in her neck, so we have to find a scarf to wrap round her, then Jools feeds her lunch; just soup and Angel Delight, in all that takes about an hour. She is not happy, for the most part, and on our part, there is nothing we can say or do to make her life any easier.

We take our leave as the day is running out, and we have to visit to old folks in Whitfield too. Its not a good feeling leaving Nan there, but there is nothing at all we can do.

Up at Whitfield, things are much the same, people not talking to each other and the rest of the stuff. We accept a glass of wine, and chat. I look at the time and it is half two: I have a large cockerel to cook. We take our leave and drive along deserted roads back home.

I weigh what should be the six pound bird, only to find it tipping the scales at over ten. I calculate the cooking time, and work out three and a half hours. Oh well. I coast it with butter, season it and after covering with foil pop it into the oven. Then begins the waiting.

Soon it begins to fill the kitchen with fine smells. But for the first time ever I have giblets to deal with. I boil the wriggly bits with onions, spices and water, then go about the job of reducing the resulting brew to half its volume so I can make gravy with it later. With some small adjustments I make sure it won't be ready until after the end of Dr Who, which Jools likes to watch, and soon I am in the kitched surrounded by boiling pots of vegetables and other wonderful stuff.

I carve the bird, dish up the vegetables and hand out the Yorkshire Puddings and roast potatoes. We sit down to eat whilst we listen to Desert Island Discs plays on the computer. All washed down by a bottle of Italian fizz.

We are stuffed. And tired.

We wash up, put the pots and pans away, and that seems to be that. Next door are having a party which seems to involve a cheer every ten minutes or so. And at half nine, we give up and climb the wooden stairs to bed.

365 days until we can do it all again!