‘Avecoat Marina

Mick set off this morning to see if he could catch up with a parcel that had been diverted to Bethnal Green sorting office. With card in hand he arrived and joined the queue where news reached his part of the line that the sorting office was closed due to strike action. His trip out though did mean he bought some stand in presents for his sisters as the parcel containing those also hadn’t arrived despite several attempts at delivery.

Meanwhile back at the house preparations were underway for the first Leckenby Geraghty family get together since the pandemic. Whilst Andrew and Josh worked on work things Jac and I made salads, prepared a fish pie laid the table and tidied up, all under the watchful supervision of quality controller Finn, he’s very particular about his fish pie!

Kath was first to arrive out of the cold, soon followed by Christine and Paul. John and Marion had changed their plans and driven up from the south coast, sadly they wouldn’t be staying as Marion was full of cold. An exchange of presents was done accompanied by some festive fizz before they headed off back home with a welfare package of fish pie. Anne, Mick’s fourth sister joined us briefly via video link from Scotland, which was lovely to have everyone together for a short while.

What a lovely afternoon and early evening, drinking, eating and chatting away. The fish pie was very tasty along with the salad. Then pudding came out decorated with some of the candied orange slices I’d made the other day. Sitting in the tuperware they had got very sticky again. One orange seemed to have candied better than the other. The cheesecake was very rich, which went down well.

It really was great to get people back together for an early Christmas, just a shame not everyone could stay or be there. There were a couple of plans talked about for next year, where we hope to be able to get the next generation and the one below that together too.

Around 6pm Josh came down and said it had started to snow. By 7:30 this was more obvious looking out of the window as it was starting to build up. A taxi was called to get people home and as we waved goodbye there must have been at least an inch and a half of snow.

Poor Marion and John had left us most probably around 3pm and had got stuck on route home by snow. A pause in a pub for a few hours before they altered their route back to the south coast, arriving home as we were all heading to bed.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 canal not frozen (Hertford Union) yet, 3 sisters, 1 videoed in, 11 bottles, 1 welfare package, 0 left overs of fish pie, 0.25 left of cheese cake, 1st get together since 2019, 4 stand in presents, 1 still to be caught up with, 1 happy Finn, 10C on Oleanna! And don’t I know it!!!

If people would like me to post how I candied the oranges I’ll add it to the recipes, let me know.