Happy Christmas

Sick of bland food over the last four weeks, I decided to do an experiment. As Kay, Darcy and I had been invited over to Darcy's parents in deepest Kent for Christmas, and they tend to cook vegetarian, we decided to have our traditional Christmas lunch a few days ago on Monday. I cooked the traditional meal only swapping turkey for chicken, as I did not want a lot of leftovers. I literally helped myself to a teaspoon of everything - chicken, carrots, parsnips, potato and one pig in its blanket - with lashings of gravy to convert it into a mush. The whole meal hardly covered a quarter of my dinner plate. I passed on the red cabbage and sprouts as I thought that was a step too far for an unhappy stomach. I then had a teaspoon of Christmas pudding with a little cream. If anything was going to upset me, THAT would. Thankfully and instinctively, I knew now was a right time to experiment and to my delight my stomach took the new food well and did not react, although admittedly I had dosed myself before and after with so much medication that it would have been a surprise if I had reacted. We even went for a short walk around the neighbourhood afterwards.

In the evening, we watched the DVD of It's a Wonderful Life. I have never seen it before. It was actually Greg's favourite film of all time and ever since I had known him, he had said how much he liked the film. He used to go on about it many times. We bought him the DVD as a Christmas present, the Christmas before he died. He was too past it and ill to watch it, even if he took it in that we had given it to him. It thus sat on the shelf unopened for the last 16 years. Now and again, Kay and I would be tempted to watch it, but always found excuses not to. Until we decided to watch it that evening.  Although incredibly dated - it was first shown in 1946 - in black and white and with some scenes that would not pass politically-correct muster nowadays - it was an incredibly sad yet uplifting film. We kept thinking of Greg all the way through and let's just say there were tears at the end.

We are all off to spend Christmas with Darcy's parents, so I hope my stomach can stand the test. It just leaves me to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year. I'll be back to my regular Sunday posts in the New Year!