Monkey's Blog - with a little help from Alice

Catching up backwards! [Part Two]
[UPDATED SAT 31 DECEMBER 2016]

Better late than never, as they say . . . The "x" is from Ba, by the way. She insisted.

You can see the whole gang turned out, including BB8 and R2-D2. Even Fredrick the lizard [not Frederick] moved from his usual haunt on the arm of the settee. We all wore our Festive headgear (or wings) and Fredrick consented to have a jolly parcel clipped onto his tail. We'll introduce him properly another time.

In this carefully posed photo, he looks suitably Seasonal, next to the lovley little Nativity Scene we got in the Christmas Market one year. The exquisite blue flower came with a tiny lid, and was chosen by the grandchildren as a present for Alice when they were in Thailand. Yes, really. Click to see more closely.

Of course we helped Alice with her feasting preparations, as usual.

Before the cooking proper started, Alice had a traditional Buck's Fizz, made with freshly squeezed orange juice and half the Brut. There isn't any Cointreau in it, but the bottle lives on the work surface more or less permanently at this time of year, to go into hot mince pies, before the ice-cream gets spooned on top again. Oooo, yummy.

It took quite a few hours to reach this point: two chicken breasts are stuffed with orange, onion and herbs, and wrapped round with strips of bacon, then stuck with cocktail sticks and tied up with string to keep them from falling apart.

The bacon rolls are filled with stuffing, and topped with a little butter. The root veggies are parsnip, golden beetroot and sweet potatoes, all sprinkled with Rosemary, a few bits of red onion, and whole cloves of garlic. Plus olive oil.

In the pan at the front is the early stage of what will be a delicious mushroom-based gravy.

And very late in the evening we sat down to eat our culinary achievement, and watched Doctor Who, recorded earlier on. It wasn't bad, but nowhere up to the standard of the latest Star Wars Rogue One of course. That was terrific.

We're also following the Harry Potter series on ITV, which we haven't seen since the films first came out in the early 2000s. It's stood the test of time extremely well. We're looking forward to the return of Sherlock, too. And there will lots of new films at the cinema in the coming year. Yippee!

Only half of the food above was consumed on the 25th. The rest made great ingredients for a good warming soup, some interesting salad, and occasional snacks, as well.

We're about to go and finish off the last of it right now! So it's 'bye for now.

Update

A few days later, we had Granny Alice's Christmas with the grandchildren. Here we are with the presents under their tree. [As you should know by now, you can click on any of the photos to see them bigger.]

Dinner is almost served, and the children can't wait.

Towards the back of this picture you can see two different stuffings, "pigs in blankets" with glazed parsnips, and good old brussels sprouts. We brought the crackers, still un-pulled.

Still to arrive on the table were the scrumptious roast potatoes and the gravy. After this everyone was too busy eating and drinking to take any more photos.

Afterwards, we all enjoyed watching Disney's 2015 version of Cinderella, directed by Kenneth Brannagh. There's an interview with him about his take on the age-old story in The Telegraph.

We were surprised to see Rob Stark (a.k.a. Richard Madden) appearing as a fairy-tale prince! In fact, we thought he suited this role better than he did his one in Game of Thrones. It was actually a jolly good film altogether, and a splendid way to end our second Christmas Day.

After being allowed to stay up later than usual, the grandchildren didn't want to go to bed at all. But of course, they slept as soundly as ever. Alice had eaten too much chocolate after dinner, and drunk far too much alcohol of several sorts - which had the opposite effect and she got insomnia. When will she learn!?

If you're into celebrating Hogmanay, here's our good wishes for a great time all round!