A Christmas Turkey Tale
I was glad when it rained on Christmas Day. The grey damp world outside the window for once excluded that familiar awkward moment from the proceedings – you know; the one when apropos of nothing, somebody pipes up with “hey, let’s clear those cobwebs and go for a stroll!” They act as if this bolt of lightning had only just come to them in a sudden moment of inspiration when you know they’ve been gradually working their way towards the subject with the unswerving speed and certainty of an oil carrying supertanker. You sigh and groan inwardly as your attempts to eat all four truckles of artisan cheese that you found in the fridge earlier and gradually slip into a happy coma somewhere in between “Goldfinger” and “Diehard” are thwarted by a collection of somebody else’s unwanted and lofty ideals. Luckily this time was different. We stayed in, we ate lots of unnecessary foodstuffs, and Christmas Day passed quietly and gently without exposure to the elements. Is it too much to be allowed to languish in front of the television for one afternoon next to a small reservoir of sherry? It’s only one day in a year after all.
The preparations had brought a familiar situation, when the opportunity to pick up a bacon adorned turkey crown for one quarter of its original price arose on Christmas Eve approximately an hour before the supermarket closed its doors for the night. “Shall I get it?” came the text from Ali with an accompanying picture of the product itself, complete with the bright yellow sticker which demonstrated the enormity of the price reduction. “Yes,” I replied. I then sent four more replies saying “Yes,” just in case she’d somehow missed the first one, even though the evidence showed that the turkey crown was already in the shopping basket rather than on the refrigerated shelf from which she’d liberated it. She does enjoy those last minute bargain hunts. I’d given up and was busy wrestling with a challenging dynamic range at Wheal Coates – and making a mess of it as well for that matter. Of course we didn’t wait until the last moment for our Christmas poultry treat. I’d already picked up a free range chicken in Lidl a couple of days earlier as our full back position – just in case the final hours of scavenging the reduced items in Tesco came to nought. Of course, the result of this was that the pair of us, who are almost but not quite vegetarian through the other fifty-one weeks of the year have overdosed on poultry during the last week and are in danger of sprouting feathers and heading out into the garden to scratch around for stray worms. In fact, I think she gave up on Boxing Day, while I continued with the protein loading until yesterday. Sometimes the phrase “cold turkey” actually means what it says you know. The cat is looking rather pleased with the remaining booty that’s now reserved entirely for her. Meanwhile I’m going into detox mode. It’s lentils for tea tonight. Lovely. Next year we might just give up and have a nut roast. Although the cat won’t like it.
There were plenty of vegetables too of course. It was a bit disappointing that raging inflation meant our cauliflower was the size of a fairly large sprout, but on the plus side I did peel a well developed sprout that was almost the size of a cauliflower, so we were recompensed in some way at least. It’s a good job we like sprouts – they’re not just for Christmas you know. Then there was the annual debate on the subject of chocolate. Ali’s view is that hers will last until Easter, with one modest chunk at a time apparently sufficing, while I’m scratching through the empty wrappers in a fruitless search well before the end of Boxing Day. It does help her cause that she likes to assist me with my stash first though. At least this year my Toblerone actually looked like a Toblerone once more. Its counterpart in the last festive season had such enormous gaps between each chunk that I thought she’d got me a new bicycle stand. Amazingly I haven’t finished it yet – temperance obviously comes with age. Although having said that the football field sized bar of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut disappeared astonishingly quickly one afternoon when I was left to my own devices at home. There’s an unopened bottle of Port in the kitchen too. How did that happen? There must yet more cheese that I'm still to stumble across lurking deep within the fridge.
To make up for my absence from having a walk, here are some people going for a stroll a couple of days before Christmas on the beach at Gwithian in a scene where the sun so often dissolves with incomparable beauty behind the distant bluff. It’s a glorious place to come and take photographs all year round – if you follow me regularly, you’ll know this is my most often visited haunt – and the middle of winter is an especially good time to capture those reflected silhouettes at low tide, wandering in and out of the frame in front of the lone oddball with his tripod planted into the wet sand. My previous post was taken on the same day, and if you were kind enough to read the story you’ll know about the heavy cull of humanity that took place with the spot removal tool in Photoshop later. But for this image the distant figures beyond the pair in focus seemed important – all no doubt looking forward to that well earned rest, those few days of cold turkey and chocolate, of cheese and port, of their favourite James Bond, and of Bruce Willis sorting out the bad guys without his shoes and socks on.
So now it’s 2022 and an entire year lies waiting for us to paint it with new colours. I’m excited; there are adventures already lying in wait and I’m sure you have plans of your own in the making. So I’ll wish you all a very Happy New Year and wait to see what magic appears on these pages in the coming twelve months. There may well still be a battle ahead before you know what is finally a thing of the past, but what so many of us have discovered over the last two years is the riches that lie on our own doorsteps. There’s so much to find close to home if you look for it.
A Christmas Turkey Tale
I was glad when it rained on Christmas Day. The grey damp world outside the window for once excluded that familiar awkward moment from the proceedings – you know; the one when apropos of nothing, somebody pipes up with “hey, let’s clear those cobwebs and go for a stroll!” They act as if this bolt of lightning had only just come to them in a sudden moment of inspiration when you know they’ve been gradually working their way towards the subject with the unswerving speed and certainty of an oil carrying supertanker. You sigh and groan inwardly as your attempts to eat all four truckles of artisan cheese that you found in the fridge earlier and gradually slip into a happy coma somewhere in between “Goldfinger” and “Diehard” are thwarted by a collection of somebody else’s unwanted and lofty ideals. Luckily this time was different. We stayed in, we ate lots of unnecessary foodstuffs, and Christmas Day passed quietly and gently without exposure to the elements. Is it too much to be allowed to languish in front of the television for one afternoon next to a small reservoir of sherry? It’s only one day in a year after all.
The preparations had brought a familiar situation, when the opportunity to pick up a bacon adorned turkey crown for one quarter of its original price arose on Christmas Eve approximately an hour before the supermarket closed its doors for the night. “Shall I get it?” came the text from Ali with an accompanying picture of the product itself, complete with the bright yellow sticker which demonstrated the enormity of the price reduction. “Yes,” I replied. I then sent four more replies saying “Yes,” just in case she’d somehow missed the first one, even though the evidence showed that the turkey crown was already in the shopping basket rather than on the refrigerated shelf from which she’d liberated it. She does enjoy those last minute bargain hunts. I’d given up and was busy wrestling with a challenging dynamic range at Wheal Coates – and making a mess of it as well for that matter. Of course we didn’t wait until the last moment for our Christmas poultry treat. I’d already picked up a free range chicken in Lidl a couple of days earlier as our full back position – just in case the final hours of scavenging the reduced items in Tesco came to nought. Of course, the result of this was that the pair of us, who are almost but not quite vegetarian through the other fifty-one weeks of the year have overdosed on poultry during the last week and are in danger of sprouting feathers and heading out into the garden to scratch around for stray worms. In fact, I think she gave up on Boxing Day, while I continued with the protein loading until yesterday. Sometimes the phrase “cold turkey” actually means what it says you know. The cat is looking rather pleased with the remaining booty that’s now reserved entirely for her. Meanwhile I’m going into detox mode. It’s lentils for tea tonight. Lovely. Next year we might just give up and have a nut roast. Although the cat won’t like it.
There were plenty of vegetables too of course. It was a bit disappointing that raging inflation meant our cauliflower was the size of a fairly large sprout, but on the plus side I did peel a well developed sprout that was almost the size of a cauliflower, so we were recompensed in some way at least. It’s a good job we like sprouts – they’re not just for Christmas you know. Then there was the annual debate on the subject of chocolate. Ali’s view is that hers will last until Easter, with one modest chunk at a time apparently sufficing, while I’m scratching through the empty wrappers in a fruitless search well before the end of Boxing Day. It does help her cause that she likes to assist me with my stash first though. At least this year my Toblerone actually looked like a Toblerone once more. Its counterpart in the last festive season had such enormous gaps between each chunk that I thought she’d got me a new bicycle stand. Amazingly I haven’t finished it yet – temperance obviously comes with age. Although having said that the football field sized bar of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut disappeared astonishingly quickly one afternoon when I was left to my own devices at home. There’s an unopened bottle of Port in the kitchen too. How did that happen? There must yet more cheese that I'm still to stumble across lurking deep within the fridge.
To make up for my absence from having a walk, here are some people going for a stroll a couple of days before Christmas on the beach at Gwithian in a scene where the sun so often dissolves with incomparable beauty behind the distant bluff. It’s a glorious place to come and take photographs all year round – if you follow me regularly, you’ll know this is my most often visited haunt – and the middle of winter is an especially good time to capture those reflected silhouettes at low tide, wandering in and out of the frame in front of the lone oddball with his tripod planted into the wet sand. My previous post was taken on the same day, and if you were kind enough to read the story you’ll know about the heavy cull of humanity that took place with the spot removal tool in Photoshop later. But for this image the distant figures beyond the pair in focus seemed important – all no doubt looking forward to that well earned rest, those few days of cold turkey and chocolate, of cheese and port, of their favourite James Bond, and of Bruce Willis sorting out the bad guys without his shoes and socks on.
So now it’s 2022 and an entire year lies waiting for us to paint it with new colours. I’m excited; there are adventures already lying in wait and I’m sure you have plans of your own in the making. So I’ll wish you all a very Happy New Year and wait to see what magic appears on these pages in the coming twelve months. There may well still be a battle ahead before you know what is finally a thing of the past, but what so many of us have discovered over the last two years is the riches that lie on our own doorsteps. There’s so much to find close to home if you look for it.