Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Having thought sometime in October that I was fairly well prepared for Christmas, suddenly  December arrived and I realised I wasn't, hence the lack of updates on the Christmas preparations, which I was too busy getting on with and being late with to actually blog about!  Anyway, we finally got there; husband home, house cleaned and decorated, mince pies made, wreath assembled, shopping done and various meals prepped and frozen.    Phew!

We were all ready for the arrival of our Christmas guests - my parents and brother coming all the way from Kent!

We went for a quick amble around Meavy on Christmas eve, catching a flash of bright winter sunshine before the clouds arrived with a shower of icy rain.

We made a few friends on the way home.

Christmas day broke beautifully sunny and clear, perfect to accompany our breakfast of homemade panettone (burnt, oops) and opening stockings.

We went for a pre-lunch appetite-building walk in the glorious sunshine, lovely apart from when taking selfies...

By the time we got home we were just in time for a few presents with coffee and lunch-prepping.

Lunch started with baked goat's cheese with beetroot pate and sourdough toasts.

We then moved on to the main event - a giant roast chicken accompanied by the crispiest roast potatoes and parsnips, braised red cabbage, green beans, mushroom and chestnut stuffing and crabapple and damson gin jelly.

It was delicious!

We had to have a bit of a break before we could even think about pudding, so we did a bit of clearing up before slumping in front of the fire in the squashy seats, to finish our feast with a chocolate hazelnut praline cake and clotted cream.  Needless to say, nothing much was achieved after that, we watched the lovely Queen followed by several films and then crawled fat and happy to bed.

Today required a good walk to burn off some of the effects of yesterday's celebrations, although sadly the weather wasn't quite as gorgeous as yesterday's and we got soaked!  Despite the weather, the walk was still beautiful, we went up to the Dewerstone near Bickleigh; the boys climbed the super steep hill to the views at the top (slightly blighted by clouds and rain!) and Mim and I followed the path along the river which chuckled and raced over the rocks past us.

  All the better to enjoy cold roast with piles of chutney and mayonnaise on our return!