Preparations

The Christmas preparations are going suspiciously well. I even checked the gas-tank to make sure we have enough LPG to see us through the holiday - we usually run out about January 1st - and it's almost full. At this time, I always fret until all my chickens are in the nest and under my wing, which is scheduled to be on Christmas Eve when Paul arrives from Nottingham, although his idea of early afternoon tends to be around midnight. Charlie will be working Christmas day - people still need cared for - but he finishes at 3pm, so he'll be a late chicken.

Speaking of chickens, we'll be eating one on Christmas day. Admittedly it's the size of a small ostrich, but turkey is a terrible price this year thanks to the bird-flu, and as some of the brood don't eat it anyway, I decided to go with a lovely free-range chicken and a nice joint of Aberdeen Angus. Now, of course, I don't know whether to do Yorkshire puddings or bread sauce.

Of course it's still Advent and yesterday I had to doctor the Advent wreath up at the church because it's in danger of going up in flames. The purple berries had to be replaced with fresh ones (isn't it useful that such berries grow in the rectory garden? Our rector is a stickler for the proper colours of advent, so not a red berry in sight until Christmas day) and candle number one had to be replaced with candle two, which was replaced with candle four from last year. This will only make sense to those of you who are advent-wreath-savvy, by the way, sorry. I was reminded of our niece, Eilidh's, christening when the advent wreath under the pulpit suddenly caught fire during Rob's father's sermon and for a moment it seemed he was going to disappear in a column of fire like Elijah. Brave Rob beat out the flames and he lived to preach again.

Happy Christmas to all my friends.