Just thought I’d point out that today is New Wife’s second (!) wedding anniversary with Yours Truly. All commentary about the burden she has to bear and her saintlike patience will be passed on. (She doesn’t visit this place more than once or so a week, because she’s not interested in guns or politics.)
I am a lucky man.
As I may have said before, we don’t have Christmas Dinner on Christmas Day itself: Christmas Day is devoted to a Full English Breakfast with the kids (this was ours yesterday; bangers, beans, back bacon, mushrooms. eggs and tomato all fried in boerewors drippings and hash browns, also — not pictured — French bread toast, and cinnamon rolls made by Daughter)
I should point out that this was my plate: the others had portions essentially double that of mine, because I can’t take that much because of gastric surgery. I made up for it by drinking more Mimosas than everyone else.
We save the roast beef dinner till the day after Christmas: Boxing Day (a Du Toit family tradition):
I cook the roast, New Wife does the potatoes, parsnips, asparagus and other veg., and Daughter makes the Yorkshire pud. Dessert is generally peach cobbler and / or fruit cake with icing, but this year there’s a Yule Log like this one, compliments of Daughter.
Mostly because nobody in our family can handle a Full English and Roast Beast on a single day, we’ve turned Christmas Day into a two-day family affair. In American terms, it’s like having two Thanksgiving meals in a row.
We like it that way.
Mr. FM was engaged in ritual slaughter at one of his estates (in Devon, I think) over the past weekend:
…which is all well and good, but I have two serious issues with this:
1) According to the Daily Mail, Britishland is supposed to be suffering near-Arctic conditions at the moment:
…but clearly they’ve been lying again, or else Teh Weather doesn’t have the necessary permits to wander onto Mr. FM’s properties.
2) I wasn’t there to join in the festivities.
[exit, eating his liver ]
One of the things that always amazed me was that in any random group of more than a dozen people, the odds of at least two people sharing a birthday were so good it didn’t merit making book — it was almost a dead cert.
But on this 7th day of December, it still amazes that I have three people in my immediate circle of family / close friends who share a birthday today: Longtime Friend Trevor, step-daughter-in-law Kerryn and step-nephew Mark — all South Africans, by the way.
And only one of them turned 21:
…although it was Mark, not Kerryn who reached that milestone. She, however, gets this one:
…and lastly, Trevor’s:
I said he was one of my oldest friends…
Happy birthday to all of you !!!!