Once again I am awake really early (5.30 am). This happens most mornings due to how light it is in our bedroom and also because my back, used to my lovely supportive mattress on the boat, screams out when presented with anything less than perfect and gives me a hard time. It’s resolved by getting up and moving about, unfortunately.
The day starts wet, grey and dismal – great.
Ann and Terry’s friends, Jenny and Heine, are coming for dinner tonight and I am cooking the slow aromatic pork dish that Mike and I love so much. I should really have put it on last night but it is smaller than the size the recipe calls for and I realised late last night that it is also leg rather than shoulder. I hope it’s OK.
It’s in the oven by 7 am and I then prepare the vegetables before cooking a Malva pudding. As this is an experiment, we eat about half of it to check that it’s OK. It is so I then make another one along with the rich sauce that you pour over it when it’s cooked. As Johanne would say, today I really have my cooking hat on. With everything ready, I finish decorating the tree with Ann.
As the day continues, the wet, grey dismal weather continues too. I can hardly see the trees over the road, let alone the lagoon. Rather than it being fog, I think it’s low cloud, but the result is the same. For most of the afternoon it absolutely throws it down. When Terry says he’s going out for a cappuccino and asks if anyone else would like to go, we all look at him as if he is mad. He goes alone, undeterred by our lack of enthusiasm.
By the time Jenny and Heine arrive, Terry’s Christmas song selection is in full swing – unfortunately. We have everything from Slade to Wham to some guy singing ‘Frostie the Snowman’. Ann flips over the worst ones thank goodness.
We have champagne then pose for a photograph in front of ‘that tree’ which I have to say now looks very lovely. It’s a good job that it does as it might be there for a long time!!
Dinner is a bit later than planned and I think the pork is a bit dry in places but passable. The creamy potato gratin goes down a treat as does the Malva pudding – and both so low in calories – not!! Why do the best things have to be so evilly calorific?
We have a lovely evening, although I do manage to lower the tone of the conversation by the end of the evening, much to Ann’s horror, although I have to point out that she starts it. Ann and Terry load the dishwasher and Mike I and take off for bed, dragging our very full bellies along with us to cause us havoc during the night.
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