Aftermath!

The most watched television programme in the UK yesterday was the Queen’s speech. Who knew that so many British were so royalist? Or maybe it’s just that they are traditionalist.

Needless to say, we didn’t watch the speech. We were busily tucking into Christmas food at that point in the afternoon.

Later in the day, after the marauding hoard, otherwise known as our daughter and family, had departed, we picked up on a news programme. There we saw film of the royal family, minus the ageing Duke of Edinburg, going to and from church. Masses of people had turned out to stare at them. One woman was waxing sentimental about the fact that she had managed to get a phot of Meghan Markle cradling her baby-bump! Not even a selfie with Meghan but just a photo of a random American who as married into the royal family and is having a baby!

Today people have been photographed queueing up to get into the sales at the Trafford Centre for the sales. Presumably the same has been happening at shopping centres all over the country. One photo showed two women, cousins apparently, with six or eight huge bags of bargains they had bagged at Next. I am mystified! First you spend weeks spending money to buy presents for friends and family and then, as soon as the BIG DAY is over, you go out and spend more.

Personally I hate sales. I cannot stand rifling through racks of clothes in search of something that might be he right size, colour, style and, of course, price. Don”t get me wrong. I love a bargain. I just prefer to do my bargain hunting on my own, usually online, without having to push my way through crowds of other bargain hunters.

Besides, isn’t everyone supposed to be short of money?

In our house the ritual exchange of gifts yesterday went well enough, despite our grandson claiming that the shirt I had bought him was identical to one I had bought him last year (it wasn’t, it was just similar, and there was a matching cap this year!) and that I had already given him on another occasion the David Walliams book that was part of his present. The shirt was not a problem and he accepted a monetary equivalent for the book. Fortunately I had kept the receipt and so I should be able to return it to the bookshop.

And today I have been stripping the remains of the meat off the huge turkey (with, as predicted, more meat than half a dozen people could possible eat), a necessary task to make room in the fridge for other stuff, and boiling up the bones to make stock and possible soup. Much more satisfying than standing in a queue hoping for a bargain!

Now I must make sure the bedrooms are organised ready for the onslaught from the other half of the family, driving north from the London area tomorrow. Then we’ll do a repeat performance, with turkey hotpot or turkey curry instead of roast turkey, depending on what I decide to make.

A further ritual exchange of gifts will take place.

Christmas in easy stages! You have to love it!