Tales of Christmas Past: or How I learned the Graceful Art of Plaster boarding

When we moved back into what once was my ancestral home it was in rather a state. I will not bore you with the details here, but we needed to do extensive work to make it livable. This became a living work in progress and even today I have not finished the plastering. (I sort of ran out of energy somewhere along the line) One of the places in need of some tlc was the bathroom but as funds were low at that point I held off. The original tenant had broken the toilet. (He did weigh around thirty stone). This he had replaced but the down pipe from the cistern was cut just a little too short. The damage from the original downpour showed on the kitchen ceiling and I had spent many a happy hour trying to white wash it out.

Christmas for my remaining, home festering offspring was and still is a big production. The middle daughter and the youngest were with me at the time and we were expecting the eldest son to stay over the festivities. Middle daughter started the process of on the first of December with dispatching me to the attic for retrieval of the decorations. She then hung them and whilst the youngest assembled the tree and they both argued over what should go where I began the food lists. Lights are very important to Middle daughter so these were hung outside via a series of extensions. I used my power saw to cut a wedge for cable to run out of the front door surround and this was all gaffer taped. Then Middle daughter checked the rest of the road to see if anyone had put their decorations up before her. (She gets rather aggressive around this time of year and I have noted that the number of outside lights has increased. I did draw the line at the herd of deer lights as I foresaw them being the target of revelers on their way home form the local public house.) (In fact they did mistake our outside stick lights one year for stand alones and ripped one off its wiring.)

This was in the happy days before youngest daughter became a vegetarian and everybody ate the same food. In general there were so many arguments over what to serve for the main dinner that we had compromised on a turkey (enough for two days) a small piece of beef and a large piece of boiled bacon (two days and breakfasts) We have a large freezer so items were purchased as and when bargains occurred and stored ready.

The kitchen had limited work surfaces as this was prior to my carpentry extravaganza and we also had limited storage capacity. The boiling bacon was no problem as I defrost it and cook it on Christmas Eve, the turkey on the other hand needs about forty-eight hours so this was moved from pillar to post as meals had to be cooked and mince pies made. Did I mention I have cats? They are quite excitable at this time of year too.

It was the night before Christmas. The turkey was now in the cooled oven for safety and the boiled bacon was cooling down in the microwave. I removed the beef from the freezer and placed it next to the microwave on the top of the freezer. Guests arrived and glasses of wine were poured. I knew that I had to somehow fit the beef into the microwave and move the cooled bacon to the fridge but memory gets a little fuzzy when you are chatting and laughing. It had been a long day and I retired to my bed.

Christmas morning dawned and as it is my second childhood I bounced out of bed around dawn. I walked into the kitchen. Sometime during the night the down pipe from the cistern had come loose and water was covering a large part of the kitchen floor, together with half the ceiling. I stood in shock. Then I noticed that the beef had vanished. There were two alternatives. a) Burst into tears or b) go into hysterics. I chose to burst out laughing (I must speak to my psychiatrist regarding my reactions),

It did not take too long to clean out the kitchen and make a cup of tea. I finally traced ninety percent of the beef under the dining room table. I rinsed it and cut away the fang marks. It cooked quite well considering its adventure.
These days I have other means of protecting the Christmas fare. A neighbour had bought a rabbit hutch and now wanted to get rid of it. It was unused and quite attractive, but best of all free. It acts as a stand for our barbeque in the summer and in winter as a cold store for turkey and beef. The real pleasure is that the cats cannot get into it. It drives them mad.