December 2010 – Family Christmas

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I won't bore you with all the details of shopping and preparing the trailer for our holiday. although we did manage just one or two delicious lunches – had to have my chicken livers peri peri – and possibly the best seafood I have ever had served at Ocean Basket, a platter of mussels, prawns, calamari and fish all served in their unique sauce – absolutely delicious, all for the price of a burger and chips in the UK. Or maybe I've just been away from good food for so long that it all tastes wonderful.

Family started arriving on the 23rd ready for a big Christmas together. Carrie's parents came from Durban en-route to the Cape, complete with their two dogs and Wendy and Barrie and Rory and Dean flew up from Durban, fortunately with no dogs. You can imagine the chaos, dogs (9 of them, 2 visitors, 1 Jack Russell, 1 new Labrador puppy and 1 fluffy thing with 4 tiny puppies), kids, Andy, all running riot.

We had decided to cook Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve so we could have the next day relaxing. It was just as well because there were about 8 cooks spending various shifts in the kitchen as we endeavored to include all the traditions from all families – including Wendy's stuffing that apparently she cooks every year – and no-one eats every year, she can be so stubborn – but the dogs did enjoy it.

The meal turned out a big success, the turkey was cooked on the open fire on the spit which struggled manfully to turn the big bird, only just succeeding, the gammon was in the oven and the lamb was on the Weber. Goodness knows how we managed to get it all cooked at the same time but we did.

Christmas day was a more relaxed affair, with lots of presents to open, and more importantly lots of news to catch up on after 2 years away.

All the guests left Boxing day when we also did our last minute shopping and packing for 2 weeks camping.

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