Gobble! Gobble!

There are two phrases you don't really want to wake up to on the first day of a four-day holiday week-end:
1) "The toilet's blocked again"; and
2) "Mummy, I don't know how it happened, but I seem to have a purple pom-pom stuck up my nose".

The toilet's still blocked, alas, but the pom-pom was removed with the minimal amount of fuss and a pair of tweezers.

We almost managed an invite to a Thanksgiving Feast, but faltered at the last hurdle, as the chap who was inviting us found out that twenty-seven other people were being invited, and didn't fancy making it a round 30. Rotter.

Instead we are going to have that staple of post-Christmas gluttony: turkey curry. C* (bridgjo's company) gave us a voucher for a free turkey, so I went to our local super-market and ordered one, cut into eight pieces, as, quite frankly, I would be hard-pressed to fit a 30lb turkey in my freezer. This means we will have meat throughout those lean, winter months. In true American style, the butcher carried the dismembered carcass to the cash-register for me, and a bag-boy carried it to the car.

I also ordered the wood. A Fireplace Chord, no less, which is nicely stacked at the back of the house. The men who brought it arrived at 6am,having already done one delivery. I offered them a cup of tea, and asked how they wanted it. "Um, how do people have it?", one asked. I did it "servant's tea"-style: strong, milky with sugar. Half-an hour later, there was a timid knock on he door. "Any chance of another cup of that tea?" - more Americans converted to the complex ways of the English.