Breakfast: Multigrain hoops with milk and a sprinkling of sultanas
Tea (from my special childhood Hornsea Pottery dragon mug that I only get to drink out of these days when I'm at my Dad's house where it gets heavy use, I drank from it four more times during the day) (please take it as read that tea is drunk regularly throughout the following)
Midmorning: Two Rich Tea biscuits
Lunch: Corned beef and beetroot sandwiches (and did the key on the tin open properly, no it did not. It got almost all the way round and then lost traction despite multiple swivellings, and in the end we had to get the pliers out)
Chocolate mousse
Midafternoon: White Creme egg (I saw them on the front shelf in the village shop with the Jacob's Crackers and the last minute wine and thought "I've got to have one of those". But it wasn't priced and when I took it to the counter the postmistress charged me 99p! Sheesh, I'm not sure if that's galloping inflation or rural prices. What's more it was a White chocolate Creme Egg! They're new for 2023 and I can confirm they're very nice - maybe it's the novelty value - it tasted a bit Kinder-Surprisy but without the gift in the middle. I can see me buying more of these, just not in a village shop)
Dinner: Chicken pieces, potatoes from the garden, carrots and peas not from the garden, out of date gravy
Apple pie and vanilla ice cream (from Lidl, which you'd think might be called Vanilidla ice cream but it had a much duller generic brand name than that)
Small glass of rumpot (from a home-made bottle labelled "Rumpot 1996" which my Dad found at the back of the cupboard. It tasted nothing like rum, more a heavy sweet sherry, and we weren't sure if it was meant to taste like that or if that's the unfortunate effect of quarter of a century of chemical reactions in a dark unloved place)
Supper: Three squares of dark chocolate
Christmas Day
Breakfast: as yesterday
[here be a 20 mile drive]
pre-Dinner: Bacon off the back of the turkey, home-made sausage roll (I was not involved in the manufacture this year, only the consumption)
Dinner: Turkey, gammon, as many roast potatoes as I could get away with, pigs in blankets, mashed potato (ordinary plus swede), stuffing of a slightly exotic variety, two Yorkshire puddings, carrots, several spoonfuls of peas, more than the average number of brussels sprouts, gravy, apple sauce (and then a plateful of seconds including most of the above, except that the roast potatoes had run out so I risked the lucky dip bowl of mixed roast potatoes/roast parsnips, and I'm still not sure if any of them were potatoes)
Christmas pudding (almost entirely submerged in custard)
Bucks Fizz
post-Dinner:
Savoury snacks from the repeatedly-replenished six-part-bowl selection (featuring the near-classic combo of i) Twiglets, ii) crisps (I think salt and vinegar), iii) nachos, iv) mini Cheddars, v) pretzels, vi) those small ones in the shape of triangles, hearts, ovals, etc)
Two Quality Street (strawberry cremes, obv)
One more sausage roll
Slice of Christmas cake
Can of Beck's (because bottles are really hard to source these days)
Boxing Day
Breakfast: Slice of raspberry swiss roll, slice of Christmas cake
Midmorning: Two sausage rolls, one strawberry Quality Street
Lunch: Christmassy rolls (yesterday's leftovers placed between cheesy baps, plus a few slices of cucumber so it's at least vaguely healthy)
Another slice of Christmas cake (because somebody has to help finish it off)
Midafternoon: Return of the six-fold snack selection bowl (now depleted of mini Cheddars and crisps)
Can of Beck's
Dinner: The Boxing Day Cold Buffet of Dreams (all the leftovers, plus new potatoes, plus an impressively wide selection of cheeses and crackers, plus a selection of pickled veg, plus cocktail sausages to replace the pigs in blankets)
Belgian Chocolate Orange Bombe/Lemon Cheesecake
Supper: Inevitable reappearance of the six-fold snack selection bowl (now with additional Chipsticks and ginger oatcakes)
Two strawberry Quality Street
step count Dec 24th: 6906 Dec 25th: 1347 Dec 26th: 609
