There are days, sometimes even weeks when I never seem to get ahead of the game and each task I carry out is at the expense of some other equally important job, today has been one of those days and if it comes to that this month has been one of those months. Last not I was so stressed that I did not get to sleep until four in the morning and have spent the day feeling well below par as a consequence.
At the bottom of all this is is that meeting with our MP next Friday and the fact that this Friday I have a vital hospital appointment and and equally important committee meeting, the last before our MPs visit so there is much to discuss. During the past few days I have been rather distracted and this has led to some strange mistakes and misunderstandings some of which I may never manage to live down.
I have twice due to a laps of memory cheated my poor son out of his favourite pasta meal, firstly by making the wrong sauce (cheese instead of tomato) and today I totally forgot and defrosted some mixed game to make a pie when I had promised the pasta dish....my name is Mud at the moment. Things are not going according to the manual that's a fact.
Even so it was not unpleasant lying in a nice warm comfy bed listening to the rain beating on the window and the patter of leaves blown in the wind. I got up at three and made myself a cup of hot chocolate and munched a couple of cookies while watching the 24 hour news. That must have done the trick because I was asleep by four and did not wake until eight when my son brought me a coffee.
We breakfasted on poached eggs and planned our day...a fatal mistake. My son decided to write and I to bake......behold no sooner had he sat at his computer and no sooner had I assembled my ingredients we suffered a power failure. It stayed off for almost two hours, just long enough to bugger up our plans . To pass the time I put together our Christmas meat order and as soon as the power returned I went on line and put it through.
Being a country girl and used to shopping at a proper butcher I simply cannot get used to the awful rubbish pedalled by supermarkets. Even the best of them such as wait rose or M&S are not brilliant. This is why I always buy our meat Either on line or from a farmers market and being disabled on line is easier for me. The meat is excellent and the price so much less that London prices, the butcher I used today is in Yorkshire and delivery is free when you spend £100.00. We usually spend about £150.00 every three months and for this we get all our beef joints ,chickens , gammon steaks and joint, pork joints and in fact almost everything we need. The joints are large and the quality is excellent, this time I have ordered a bronze turkey for Christmas and a whole gammon these two items will not be delivered until a few days before Christmas and there is something so special about having the Christmas meats delivered on Christmas eve.
These two items cost far less that I would have to pay in a supermarket and all free range.
It is also nice to know that it will be next year before I need order again and with this order almost all of the Christmas essentials are sorted,so that is one thing less to stress about.
Dinner tonight was a mixed game pie, the game came with our last meat order and comes from the Balmoral Estate, it cost about half what I would pay for a similar product in London so it is not so extravagant as it sounds.
As a child I became used to eating all kinds of game from pigeons to venison and I love all of it. Home killed pork and local reared lamb, mutton and beef were also readily available as my father would barter pheasants, rabbits and hares with the local butchers for joints of beef, lamb or pork and sausages that were so good I can still remember the taste.
We have as a family lived through some hard times over the years but I have never cut corners on the quality of the food we eat, I grow most of our own fruit and vegetables and I always have. I have I freely admit done quite a bit of poaching in my time, I was taught by an expert , my father. He taught me to be self reliant and it has stood me in good stead throughout my life.
Of course these days thanks to these blasted T.V. cheffs things which used to be cheap to obtain now cost the earth, I ask you £12.00 for a saddle of hare, even pork belly joints and lamb shanks which butchers used to be glad to give away now cost far mope than they are worth. Wood pigeons and rabbits are still cheap and make wonderful stews soups and pies. I good sized rabbit and a few root vegetables cost a lot less that supermarket burgers and oven chips, they are so much healthier and taste amazing.
I am glad that these days I do not have to shoot game as I never enjoyed killing , in the past I had no choice. During a harsh winter in the 1970's when Pa was very ill we practically lived on rabbits,and wood pigeons ,hares and in fact anything I could shoot as we had almost no income, Today I am lazy and let some one else do the shooting but think of this, the creatures we eat have live a normal life in the wild, they have not been caged and kept in dreadful conditions. The meat is lean and not full of chemicals. Hormones and anti biotic, it ha to be healthier to eat.
I now this sounds like a crusade and that is exactly what it is. Perhaps it seems strange to you that someone who devotes most of her free time to saving wild life should be an advocate of eating wild things but you see that is the natural way and for me it I the only way I know.
I fail to see how the corporate ill treatment of animals for profit can be countenanced by any one with the smallest amount of imagination. If the day ever dawns when I cannot buy what I call clean meat I shall cease to eat meat at all.
Pa has been great today and is doing his best to keep his room neat and tidy, bless his heart, I am now half way down my second G&T and I must say the I feel less stressed, thank the Gods.
I have been looking at recopies and have found some even more amazing cookies to bake/At the moment I am planning a special Christmas party for some very special people so everything has to be perfect , I do love Christmas so very much and the planning is half the fun.
I shall be glad when next weeks meeting is over, then I hope I shall be able to take off my battledress for a week or two, long enough to make a special Christmas for those I love, family and friends, this is what makes me happy, very happy indeed.
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