Still no more to eat.

I have no will power where good food is concerned.  The Christmas carvery yesterday was first class.   Huge turkey, huge joint of beef, various sauces, Yorkshire puddings, stuffings, potatoes (mashed and roast), swede (mashed) parsnips (chipped and delicious), sprouts, red cabbage, carrots, filled the counter from end to end - all piping hot and cooked to perfection.   I had some of everything apart from the Yorkshire pudding which I thought was the last straw.  (the farmer even added that to his plate).   There were eighty five eating there (fully booked) and I would hazard a guess that if you had removed everyone from the farming community there would have been no-one left.   There were some large tummies and some very healthy appetites.

All three of us really enjoyed our meal.   The farmer and I chose Christmas pudding for dessert, friend W had a lovely meringue.   She took a photograph of the dessert table for you to see - plenty of

 calories there I am sure you will agree.

Sufficient to say that it is now a quarter to eleven on a Monday morning, my cleaner has just gone and I have had nothing to eat yet apart from one round of toast for breakfast.

Everyone in the restaurant worked jolly hard and I would guess they were there incredibly early in order to have everything ready.   The restaurant is itself run by the farmers who send their sheep down off the tops to spend the Winter on our farm.

I did intend to take a photograph of my full plate but forgot until it was an empty plate!

I hope those of you who popped over to view Cro's 'tree' were inspired to do something similar.   I see that Cro in his comments on my blog yesterday, says that he has added various bits of holly and ivy to the original branch.   I hope he puts an updated photograph on his blog today.

For me there is something magical about the build-up to Christmas Day - a build-up which for me comes to a head with the Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve on BBC 1 - I never miss it and it always means the start of Christmas proper for me.   In the meantime there are lists to make and tick off so that I know haven't forgotten anything vital.   Are you a list-maker?   Or do you just trust to luck that everything will be alright on the day?