Christmas Day 25th Dec 2019

As part of Jamie’s (Jamie Oliver) Masterplan I had to get the turkey out of the fridge at 5.00am to get it into the oven at 7.00am. When I woke up I asked Vince what the time was and it was 6.51am!

Coming downstairs - Santa had been, leaving a small gift for each of us. I used WhatsApp to contact the family back home to wish them a Merry Christmas. Whilst I did that, I loaned my new Spurtle to Mike to make the porridge and it was a bit like two of sand and one of cement as we ran out of milk.

After breakfast all the boys went for a hike to the Aird and to take some photos, whilst I stayed home to keep an eye on the turkey and work on the rest of our Christmas Dinner. I saw Alan out in the field with is sheep and I popped my Wellies on to go out and invite him to join us for lunch. I got to pat Darky and Cala (who I think remember me as the sausage lady) as well as “Granny Dog” who is Darky’s mum.

Once the boys were back we did the present opening thing, and it was lovely. The boys laughed at their Highlander ‘Real Men Wear Kilts” mugs and Vince and I were treated to some traditional Dutch food and Christmas Traditions as well an enlarged photo from our 2015 trip with them, and the surprise return of “Marmalade” (an Ox mascot we had on that trip).

Alan arrived (with cleaned up oil skins) and we all sat down to a delicious Christmas Lunch of Turkey with all the trimmings, including some of my famous homemade Christmas Pudding I had brought with me from Australia. The only problem was we couldn’t have custard a we had run out of milk - as the shops were all shut Alan offered to drop off some milk for us in the morning - very kind of him.

All went pretty smoothly in the kitchen, only one mishap when I took the pudding out of the microwave the glass rotation plate somehow came with it smashing onto the bench and breaking a waiting side-plate in its wake. Thankfully no one was hurt, just a big mess to clean up and source some replacements! Vince has already found where we can order a replacement glass plate for the microwave and I will speak with the local shop in Uig (Rankins) which is also a post office to find out where we can pick things up from that are posted to us. But there was no stress as I looked out the window and into my back garden - if it's not sheep its cows that keep me company! I love it!

It was a quiet evening, no one was up for dinner as we were all still full from breakfast. We all went out to take some astro photos, and although cold it was very peaceful. We have run out of kindling (and no axe) and although there is central heating it is not as efficient or effective as the wood fire - we’ll try and get some more tomorrow.