Sunday, December 29, 2019

December 21


I wake up very early and start making shortbread and mince pies. In the back of mind is my mum's voice telling me that you only make pastry when it's cool. It's funny that I did not pay much heed to her words when she was alive, but now she is no longer here, I take her advice.

Many people think making mince pies and Christmas puddings is difficult, but it is actually very easy. We made the Christmas pudding last week and even put little trinkets in it and each stirred it from east to west whilst making a wish.  I am on a bit of a roll as I also make two quiches to take with us on Monday and a bolognaise sauce.  We will only be gone for four days and I don't want either John or I to spend it cooking so preparing things in advance should free up some of our time.

I don't like wrapping up presents.  Some people really enjoy it - putting all the ribbons on and all that, but I find it quite tedious, so I am very happy that John does all the wrapping up of the girls' presents and Sian and Ellie wrap his up.

Communication from Ritz in the Bvumba is as follows:

Ritz: Zesa back after 6 days!!!! Will it last . . . of course staff have gone off so a pile of ironing remains.
Me: Ok.  That's good news (the ZESA, not the ironing.)
Ritz: And I have also found someone to build me a Rhodesian boiler so that will be the January project as no time now!!!

I am not sure how to respond - I couldn't care less about her ironing or her proposed Rhodesian boiler - so I send a smiley face. 

No comments:

Post a Comment