Shane New Year

Last Sunday, Linda hosted a meal for all of the staff from her 3 schools to Hemei for a meal at a very classy fish restaurant. Cars would be leaving Yuanlin at 4:50 as it was a long drive to Hemei.
This was the same day that I had invited Charles out for a hard core cycle.
So I spent the morning cleaning my suit and ironing my trousers. Then at 1, I set off to meet Charles. We were both a bit late so we set off at half one in the direction of the monkey temple as Charles hadn't seen any Formosan wildlife yet. We got to the bottom of the monkey hill in less than an hour, but we both needed a break so we walked the bikes up the road to the monkeys. The monkeys were near the bottom of the hill... but neither of us had any water so needed to get to the shops in the town at the top.
This almost killed us having to carry the bikes up chunky steps and then push them up a very steep path... until finally we reached the narrow steep green stair case... I had forgotten about that staircase.
Two old ladies past us, and gestured that we carry the bikes on our shoulders...
But we didn't have the energy left so we decided to abandon the bikes and go on foot.
We got to the town and were surrounded by stalls selling sweet smelling food, but we didn't have money or time enough to enjoy it... not to worry, the big buffet was tonight... we found a water seller and tried out our Chinese. I looked at my watch and saw that it was gone 3 o clock...we really needed to get head back if we wanted time to get ready.
We quickly reached the bikes and charged down the hill trying not hit monkeys, dogs children or old people in the way. One car almost knocked me off a 7 foot cliff as we came out the carpark as he swerved to avoid another car. After that it was the fun ride down (Charles was loving it). There was an annoying headwind on the way home, so after our first rest, we couldn't afford another, we ploughed on and on and on and after over an hour and a half, we were finally back in sight of Yuanlin. I left Charles to make his own way, and race back up to Baigoshan I was in and out of the shower in 5 minutes threw up my suit and shoes just in time to be collected and taken down to the school. Paul was travelling somewhere and Sam was sick with tonsillitis but most of the TAs, Andrew and Charles were waiting at the school for me.
It was a long drive to Hemei. I was ravenous.
We got out in Hemei to find the weather its usual gale-force self. We struggled through the carpark into the shelter of the reception area. We headed upstairs to a large room with a wedding decor theme. We sat down on at a large table. We were the first to arrive which is always a bad sign if you really hungry. There was a small stage come dance-floor where a large box of posh handbags and face creams. Vicky handed everyone a raffle ticket. My number was 13 - I thought that was quite fitting.
We and Charles tucked into a plate of garlic peas and what looked like black seeds.
We weren't supposed to eat the shells apparently, but that was where all the flavour was.
It wasn't long before the Hemei and Changhua teachers had all assembled and the meal started in earnest. Rice, a white fish in this amazing sweet sauce, chicken soup (a whole chicken in a bowl) various tofu dishes, raw fish with wusabi, shrimp, octopus, cake, meat fried rice, caramel pudding, blue bean sauce and various vegetable dishes. May (Linda's sister) had brought a huge barrel of fizzy apple cider for everyone to try.
At the end of the meal, the raffle began.

There were about 15 handbags and 15 face cream bottles to draw for so it took about an hour to get through all of them. I won some cream... they hadn't really brought anything for the blokes, so we all exchanged the gifts with the girls for food or drink.
After the raffle there was a ping pong challenge. Each school had to nominate 6 people to pass a ping pong ball along a line of people using spoons in their mouths. The school with the most balls after 3 minutes won. I was amazed I collected and passed on all 3 of my balls, but Andrew and Charles kept dropping them so we scored 0points. Changhua won with 3 points.
Then there was a tongue twister challenge. Teachers had to see who could say well known tongue twisters the fastest, in Chinese and in English.

After that Andrew had written a quiz about literature, film stars and sexual deviance... the quiz was funny to start off with, but not really geared to or translated for the 60% Chinese staff or suitable for families.
So it was quickly wrapped up.

The weekend after was the Shane New Year's show. The big event in the Shane Calendar. Students and staff from each of Linda's schools had prepared and been working on a play or sketch for some time. The venue was a large lecture hall in the Christian Hospital in Changhua. Each of the plays had been given a rehearsal slot on Saturday afternoon and as I was chief cage mover, I had to be down quite early. I got a lift in Pascal's rascal van.
He had been asked to take some pictures of the event. He now had a fair bit of kit with him, so I offered to help carry it.
The schedule for the day had been planned down to the last minute, but not surprisingly, when we got there at 3pm, rehearsals were already running over.
After dumping the flash stands, I found the Yuanlin team.. they were wearing full costumes now and looked awesome. The cage had been brought up to the back of the theatre, but as it didn't pack flat, getting through onto the stage was going to be tricky. It was pretty quite so Emily gave me a hand squeezing it down the narrow corridor to the side door of the auditorium.
Linda wasn't happy with one of Hemei's dance routines, so we were held up for bit back stage. Then finally it was our turn.
Andrew led the way. All the kids remembered everything, they were a bit quiet, but then the microphones were not working yet... but this would be fixed some point that afternoon I was assured. We were given a second run through and chance to nail the new dance routine to finish. I had to tell off two TAs for leaning on the cage "It's made of card, not metal!"
I was pretty after the run, the TAs offered me a McDonald's hamburger, but it didn't quite fill the hole so I went for a walk in search of food.
There were quite a few food shops but they didn't look open. Then on the way back I popped into a bakery. Big Mistake! I can't get out of a bakery without buying at least 3 things and they're not cheap like everything else. I came out with a huge pizza, a cake and rice savory wrap thing. They were pretty goof though.


I had forgotten to bring a tie, but it didn't matter too much as I wasn't down on the meet and greet the parents. It was 6 o'clock and most of the teachers were here now. I had a quick catch up with a couple, before going back to check the cage was OK... Somebody had knocked one of the legs off! Not to worry, I had come prepared with sticky tape and string.

Our kids were on first so we made our way to the back of the stage... and waited for the 2 hosts; Rita and another school manager to finish their introduction. The music to mission impossible was going but we had no idea what was going on. Eventually it was our turn. Andrew read his speech and the kids got into place. The TAs on either side of me in the wings were getting stressed. One of the kids dropped her hat, so the TA ran on stage to give it back to her. Then when the microphones didn't work properly they ran on again... I told them to relax "Everything will be fine! Stop running on stage!" My two cage moves went swimmingly (much to my relief).

The audience loved it, especially the dance at the end. After our show we went back up to the upper auditorium to watch the rest of the show. That was the plan anyway.
As the kids were so high up and the speakers were so very loud (as are all speakers in Taiwan) it was difficult to make out what was going on. The kids started chatting among themselves. I tried telling them off, but then Paul arrived and started chatting with the other teachers. :( So I went downstairs in search of peace.
The other shows were pretty good, not as good as ours of course. The Changhua teachers did a sketch in Chinese mocking an Englishman trying to buy a newspaper.
But the highlight was some TAs dancing to some ridiculous tune in the style of an infomercial advertising Shane around the world.
At the end of the show there was a huge clean up operation by over 70 TAs as they had to be out the theatre by midnight.
I helped Pascal pack his gear. We went for something to eat before heading to Paul and Anna's farewell party in YS Bar in Changhua. Everyone was there and more.
It felt a bit odd. I hadn't seen so many waigoren (foreigners) in one place since I left England. I finally caught up with Andy and Rachel (whose wedding I went to and who still have my old scooter). They're both living in Taichung now. I recognised some people from a few parties I'd been to earlier in the year but I'd say half the people I had never met before.
Only 2 TAs had come to the party. The rest had gone home too tired after the day's slog. It was a very nice night.

New Year 100

On New Years Eve, I was encouraged to finish class on time for a change to give the TAs chance to get to Taipei before midnight. As we didn't finish work til after 9, I planned a lot more relaxing evening. I cooked up a moussaka for Tin Tin and me and we watched a concert on TV that was counting down to 2o11. It was also counting down to the year 100 for Taiwan, the Republic of China. There was an amazing firework display in Taipei, it was light watching a dance only with lights not people.
On Saturday we woke up fairly early and scootered down on Tin Tin's scooter to the train station to catch a train to Taichung. There we changed onto a shuttle bus to Sun Moon Lake, where we had booked a hotel for the weekend. The drive was smooth and before we knew it, we were on the edge of the lake in Shuishe.
It was just before 2 when we arrived and the sun was shining brightly. The hotel room was small but comfy, with a TV and a great view of the mountains behind. We dumped our stuff and prepared ourselves for a bike ride. Tin Tin was keen to cycle round the mountain and had heard of hire shops around the lake. We walked down to the first shop and I was gobsmacked. It was a giant bike shop! only these new bikes weren't for sale they were for hiring for an hour or 3 or 8.
It was 4 pounds an hour... which is pretty expensive for Taiwan... so we walked through the village until we found another, 5 pounds for 4 hours! This was more my kind of shop. Cheap bikes: cheap price. We took a couple that had good brakes and tyres. I couldn't work the kick stand. The lady said you need to hold the spring when you move it. We started our journey round the lake. The lady said it would take 3 hours... I took 90 minutes when I did it last time with Pascal 4 years ago... and Tin Tin hadn't ridden a bike in 10 years.... still on we went. Unfortunately the first chunk of the cycle was uphill to Wenhu Temple.
I thought if I'm tired Tin Tin's going to be exhausted. I walked back down the hill to where she had stopped. She was feeling really ill. I was hoping it would pass but deep down, i knew we would have to turn round and hand back the bikes. As I was waiting with her, another lady passed us and told me her gears were stiff, could I fixed them. I clicked through the right hand one. Fine! Then I clicked through with my left thumb and OUCH! my thumb just popped out and throbbed as if I'd just fallen on it again. Idiot Duncan! Don't use your thumb. Today a huge black bruise had formed across my hand and thumb as a reminder. Tin Tin was feeling a bit better so I suggested walking up to the Temple for some food and a rest.
I went to pull up the kickstand, and the spring snapped shut on my good fingers. *^#+ !! I growled.
We took some photos of Wenhu Temple ate a sausage on a stick and carried on our way.
We vowed that every time we came to a steep hill, we'd get off and walk.
We past a pagoda, the theme park cable car that is so high in the high above the lake it's surreal, the village of Tha something, and another temple; difficult to see from the road. I was very aware of the vanishing sun and the idea of cycling round a lake in the dark did not appeal.
At last we found the short cut cycle path. The sun was on the horizon. This path is madness! It is too steep and narrow to ride up or down safely so we ran most of it. After many ups and downs, we could see the campsite. I knew where we were again! We plodded on back up up up to the road through a tunnel. It was then a scary finish zooming down a dark busy duel carriageway back to Shiushe. It was gone 6 when we got back. And very dark. We dropped off the bikes and then crashed for an hour at the hotel, before hunger struck. It was very cold so we went in search of hot-pot and only one restaurant did it, the same as last time. I chose the wild boar and tofu hotpot. It was lovely. It was really quiet in the restaurant.
There were thousands of people here the night before watching the New Year's fireworks. Where had they gone?
On the way back to the hotel we had a quick look in the gift shops for something for Tin Tin's family. When we got back the "heater" had turned itself off again, so we had to resort to warming the room with a hairdryer.
The hotel price for this weekend had included a boat trip across the lake. So after some danbin at a breakfast place we bought some water and walked down to the harbour. There was a beautiful view of the mountains on the far side. And a church up some steps. We went up to see if we could get in... but the one lady who was inside said we couldn't come in, because it was prayer time.
I found this very amusing. I don't think I'd ever been told not to go into a temple because people are praying. Anyway, we went back down to the boats, got a red stamp on our hands and made out to the opposite side of the lake.
I underestimated how close the other side was or how fast the boats were. Less than 10 minutes later we had pulled up on what looked like a little island, but was actually a peninsula. There were people singing traditional songs at the harbour and on the steps up to the small temple there were people praying and listening to meditation music.

The temple wasn't that impressive, so we followed a sign 'Scenic Route' to a bigger temple... the path was very hilly but it was indeed scenic.
When we got to the temple it was across the road we had cycled on the day before. It looked Buddhist by the 4 tusked elephants outside and the lack of colours in the main building. It was very quiet and peaceful inside until some workers started banging a new path into place.
We bought an egg on the way back to the path from a pan full of cracked eggs and mushrooms. They had never really appealed to me, but I was amazed how good they tasted. This was to be a day of nice eats.
The boats next call was the small town of Yuchin. We got off the boat and found it difficult to walk as the whole harbour was floating on barrels. There were a group of people singing and smiling, standing on the wall at the exit. They waved at us as we walked past. That's what Hull needs at the docks: happy people singing and greeting people as they enter the city.
Yuchin was filled with stalls selling food and shops selling gifts. It was almost lunchtime, so Tin Tin bought a huge vegetable dumpling from a guy with photos of him serving celebrities giant dumplings all over his stall. I would have got one, but I could just see it going everywhere. So I bought a chicken and salad wrap with thousand island sauce (which has the same in Chinese well 10,000 island).
We then bought a double sausage, one rice one meat. We had to pass on the world famous meatballs. After that we went back to the harbour to relax and enjoy the view of the mountains and dogs wearing coats.
Time was pressing on so we went back past the happy singers to the boat bound for Shuishe.
On each boat ride we were given a bit of info about the area by the driver... Like the fact that the last president of Taiwan, had a house on the lake, and that the man selling cracked eggs makes 3 million dollars in a year.
In Shuishe we decided to grab an "Italian" icecream and listen to a man wailing some vaguely familiar tune, only in Chinese whilst playing the keyboard. He was quite talented player, and his voice surprisingly didn't scare people off.
We then went to buy some food and drink for Tin Tin's family. On the way back to the hotel, we saw a huge queue outside a handmade egg roll place. Tin Tin wanted to buy some so we waited in the queue for 10 minutes and only 2 people had been served we decided to come back after a drink. The queue had gone down, so we only had to wait 30 minutes before getting our two boxes of egg rolls. There were 5 people working there. one rolls the egg, one steams the egg roll, one takes the roll of the roller, one put the egg rolls into trays and another put the trays into a box for the customer. It was like watching Bertha!

Soon after it was time to get the coach back to the train station for our ride home.

3 Christmas crashes and a trip to the temple.

On Thursday 16th December, after a pretty nice day at school, I took the scooter to the water filling station two blocks away. I was pretty cold and I remember thinking, I will have to buy some gloves some time soon. I put the filled water container on my scooter and drove slowly back towards school trying not to get a chill. I came to a crossroads and suddenly bang. I went flying to the ground, my hands were hurt. I'm dazed. I assume I must have been shunted from behind because I didn't see anything. I got up see my scooter on the floor and a car pulled up with a family in it. The man was speaking to me, but I just feel dizzy and cold, so I stumbled back to school where the TAs were just looking up. A police car drove past as I did. Tasha saw me and opens the doors. I don't make a lot of sense at this point, but she sees blood on my hands and realised what's going on. I sit down on the school bench wincing. The TAs persuaded me to get into an ambulance and went down to the hospital. They tried to pull the key free but it was jammed in the scooter. I arrived at the hospital pretty quickly and I had my medical card with me. The doctor speaks good English. They rolled up my trousers and sleeves and found more injuries than I had realised. There were 4 cuts from my right knee to my shin and cuts on my left elbow, hand and middle finger. Then there was a small cut on my right knee.
The nurse covered all the injuries with a white cream, a red cream and a gel. Then wrapped a bandage over them all. I couldn't but be reminded of the French Trip moldy arm after a similar treatment. I was very cold by this point. I was physically shivering. It was a cold night and they had rolled up my clothes. Rita brought me a hot drink, which helped. I was given an xray and told "don't move" easy for you to say! I had no broken bones thankfully.
Tin Tin offered to come back home with to help me round the house. I declined as Paul and Pascal should be home.
A police man came into the hospital to breathalyse me and take my statement. He said that it looked like I hit the back of the other car as he was driving across the junction... He must have been going pretty fast for me not to have seen the whole car pass in front of me until I was on the floor. The TAs persuaded the police to leave the statement for another day. It would give us time to negotiate out of court. I was feeling weak and stiff mainly from the amount of bandages.
I got home to find Pascal and Paul were out. I went in the kitchen to pout a glass of water... ah! problem! I can't pour the container. I tried to take my jacket off, but that proved too hard too. I rang Tin Tin ... a friend in need and all that!
For the next week Rita was on the phone to the other driver on my behalf to find out what his insurance covered. I found that it would cost nearly NT$8000 to repair my scooter. So I was really hoping that he would be covered for his car. Meanwhile I was supposed to go to hospital everyday to have my bandages changed. i went once, but I thought that my leg might recover better without 3 layers of gunk applied to it daily. I was right!
The final upshot was that his insurance company are going to repay the 8000 for the scooter. So I will live to ride another day
Or will I?
The Wednesday after Christmas, I was cycling down the hill because my scooter is still being repaired - when the car I'm alongside decides he is going to go right... without any indication.
I slam on my breaks go flying over the handlebars taking off his wing mirror. I pull the bike off me and start screaming into the front window of his car about what an idiot he is and do his indicators not work! I'm going to be late for work so I try to leave. He says I need to pay him for the mirror! I don't think so! So he calls the police... at that moment Paul and Tin Tin's brother appear. The police arrived too. They were looking for my scooter, they laughed when I told them I was on a bike. They wanted us to go to the station and fill in a statement. I agree under the impression it would take 30 minutes. Well it took slightly longer as we had to wait for a translator. The police were a bit pushy at first... all the questions about me ramming the car! But by the end they had come round to my way of thinking.
A couple of questions were about injuries and my thumb hurt a bit as I'd landed on it, but I hadn't really noticed any injuries; I'd been too angry.
But back outside when I tried to hold on to someone's scooter I thought, that thumb really aches.
As my lesson had now been given to someone else to teach, I had time to pop in and see the doctor again. He gave it an xray: nothing broken, but you've sprained it. They gave me an icepack thing and wrapped it in a bandage. The nurse started to put one on my elbow, which barely had a graze, but despite my protests I had to wait til was back at school before I could dispose of it. The kids were all very confused by the new bandage... Teacher you are OK now!
2 accidents? Crazy! The TA told me I needed to go to the temple to pray for protection... I half agreed.

The Friday after New Year when my scooter was finally ready to ride again... I set off home - very slowly - with my washing from school... when 3 dogs bolted across the road right in front of me and sent me flying... again!. I was so angry I was happy to throttle the dogs, but they had ran off... I had a slight pain in my elbow and ankle, it was cold, and the starter button was missing. I stood there for ten minutes thinking about what to do... I was happy to leave the scooter there and walk home, but it was a red line... so I wheeled it back to a supermarket near school... and then hobbled back to school, where luckily the TAs were still working. "I hate that scooter" I said "No more riding scooters for me." I sat down and looked at the TAs noticed the state of my coat "Again!?"I explained everything. I looked at my elbow, there was a nasty hole, but it wasn't bleeding much. Angel got out some iodine and Tasha slapped it on... there was a slight cut to my foot too. "Do you need to go to the hospital?" they asked. "No! This is fine. I thought of how many bandages they would try to put on me... but a plaster would be good.

Vicky grabbed my hand and asked if I was free tomorrow evening. I was. She was going to take me to her father's temple which is just down the road from my house.

So yet again, I was given a lift home ... didn't sleep much that night, its difficult not to lean on your elbows.
The next morning I made myself some banana pancakes, went for walk and had a read through my Chinese books. At 2pm I went to the big primary school (6000 students) I walked the bike down the hill as I didn't fancy another accident. I had offered to help out with our school's drama for the New Year Show next week. I had been given the job of cage mover (a vital role).

The primary school had a bit more space to rehearse.
The kids were amazing. The show was called the Witch, the Wolf and the ShAne Team - get it?

Andrew had made incredible masks based on the characters in our text books.

Emma was there from Changhua, Rita brought milk tea for evreyone, even Linda (big chief) came over to see how it was coming along. Both were very impressed. Andrew had been told at the last minute that they needed a dance or song in it somewhere... so they spent a bit of time sorting that out.

After the rehearsal we jumped over the back gate which faces Shane and walked the props back to school. While I was there Rita sorted out a mechanic to come and fix the scooter.

Vicky wanted to meet at the temple at 5pm.
So I went to find the mechanic, he was waiting with his tiny van, which he rolled the scooter into. I told him to ring me when he had finished... but afterwards realised he doesnt have my number. Ah well!
I ran in to Charles on the way back to the bicycle. So I suggested we went for a bike ride on sunday afternoon. I was pretty hungry so me and Angel popped into MacDonald's for lunch (first time since I'd been here). Angel couldnt understand why I didn't love eating there. I set off to the temple on my bike, I remembered they had said something about leaving a sacrifice. So I bought 2 big boxes of quality cookies to sacrifice. When I got to the temple, quite hot from the cycle up the hill. I took out the food, and Angel and Vicky had also brought food for me to sacrifice because they thought I would forget to bring anything.
Vicky's dad greated us at the temple door. We went into the temple and left the huge pile of treats on the table, we then took 20 incense sticks and lit them. There were 17 statues around the temple. At each one we bowed, prayed for protection, placed an incence stick in a tray of sand and prayed again, bowed and moved on. There was an awesome calm in the temple, and the sun was setting over Yuanlin in front of us. When we had finished praying within the temple, we went to the faces looking out from the doors and placed a stick under each of these. We then took some paper money and burned it in the big furness. We prayed one last time, and I received from Vicky's dad a piece of yellow paper which i folded up and placed into a litle cloth holder w ith a picture of a god upon it.

I thanked Vicky's dad and was on my way out when Angel gave me all the treats that were sacrificed. "What are you doing?" I asked. "You can't take back a sacrifice!"

She explained that the gods had taken the soul of the food and they didn't need it anymore. I was gobsmacked. She said that was the way it was here, and everybody takes back the offering once the Gods have taken its soul. I still wasn't convinced so I decided to give all the sweets to the my students on Monday.

A Shaney Christmas!

A few weeks before Christmas the TAs spent a couple of weekends decorating the entrance of the building. This involved 8 people spending 12 hours making by hand: a Christmas tree in one window with a Santa Claus popping out a chimney. Three snowmen on the other window, a few thousand snowflakes bordering the windows, and two dozen stars hanging from the ceiling and a Christmas greeting. On top of that there was a real fake tree at the bottom of the stairs decorated in everything a Christmas tree needs to call itself festive.
So the school certainly felt festive even if the rest of the street didn't. Most staff working in chain stores were wearing Santa hats and some even had some tinsel in the windows. I even managed to find a "Christmas shop" in the middle of Yuanlin selling stocking shaped candy bags. It wasn't quite big enough to fill with little gifts, but it was close enough!
On Christmas week itself, the staff held auctions throughout the day, for students to bid for toys, with money they had been given for being good in class. Favourites included squishy hammers, crocodile snap game and magic tricks.
On the Thursday of Christmas week we took about 50 kids down to a restaurant to have a 'Christmas meal' We had spent the week before pre-teaching all the language they would need to order food. The meal comprised corn soup (nice), a fruit salad (looked nice, but seemed to have a scoop of ice cream in the middle with hundreds of thousands on top... don't worry though, it was mash potato and carrot with hundreds of thousands on top) then pork fillet with veg (very nice) and a jelly for dessert. The kids enjoyed themselves. my only complaint was that we had to serve them and not eat anything but cookies and tea. Still I guess I was getting paid.
I got the cutest little Christmas card from one of my kids, so I thought I'd better get them one too. I found a place selling little cards at 40% off. That covered everyone.
On Christmas Eve I was thinking about joining everyone down at the bar, but I was just exhausted so I headed home for a chilled night in front of the box.
On Saturday I opened all my present with Tin Tin. She seemed to appreciate the stocking thing. She bought me a Chinese dictionary which is so amazing... its got bpmf and English... its the missing link to my learning. I tried on my new Hull T-shirt and we enjoyed the real chocolate of home.
It was a nice crisp day, so we went for a walk up the mountain and then drove into town for a curry. As it was nearly 3, the only place open was an Italian. They were doing a Christmas special - steak steak steak I was hoping - buy a main course and for 2 pounds they would throw in a fruit salad in red wine, peach wine, and 2 truffles. Not quite steak, but the wine fruit salad took me right back to mulled wine in the German market in Manchester last year. Tin Tin didn't have the same love for it.
She had made plans to see her friend in a different town. So I thought I would pop down to Sam's house. He had invited me to a cheesy evening. Cheese is a rarity in Taiwan therefore when you are offered some, you take it! "Cheesy eats" the name of a food place that covers everything in a white sauce that distinctly lacks cheese. They have plenty of plastic slices for burgers and sandwiches, but it just isn't the same.
At Sam's house there was Stilton, Edam, Brie and blue cheese. There was a bowl of eggnog, which tasted a bit like baileys and lots of alchojellies. I recognised Mere, Andrew, Rix, Alex and Gail, but most people I didn't have a clue who they were. I got accused half way through the night of being a hermit as I didn't spend my weekends in Yuanlin bars with them. But after spending 6 hours with them, the idea of spending more time with them doesn't appeal.
On Sunday I slept in until nearly 12. Pascal had promised to cook up a Boxing Day roast dinner.
I offered to assist. When I said I was in all day, he asked me to keep an eye on the Turkey to make sure the cooker didn't turn itself off. It had been 2 hours since Pascal had left and the Turkey wasn't in the oven yet: Was that my job too? I couldn't remember. I rang Pascal and of course he turned up just as it was ringing. He brought some veg with him so it was game on: Peel and Chop time. The main problem when cooking a roast dinner for 12 at our place is that there is only 2 hobs and 2 very small ovens. You could tell Pascal had been dealing with this issue for a few years now. The turkey was cooking away in oven one. We parboiled the spuds and put them in oven 2. Then we cooked the greens very slowly on top of the spud oven, giving us hob to do the gravy (with a splash of red wine - gorgeous). The stuffing was heating up on top of the turkey oven... and then like magic it was ready to eat. Daniel (the guy who used to live here, had joined us, with Christian, Walter (landlords son) and his wife and kids, Sam and Gail. It was the perfect number of people: plenty of seconds for everyone! And Sam brought two cakes for pudding. Perfect end to a Christmas weekend.
The only downside was that we were all back at work on Monday!