The Orphans Christmas Dinner

It is cold in England during the winter. It gets dark early. Everything freezes. The high street stores have their after Christmas sales before Christmas and Australians either get the hell out or else gather together for a proper orphans christmas in the country. It was thus that we found ourselves away with friends in Somerset for Christmas in a really big, old, cool (but well heated!) country house.

One of our friends, Deverey, had thought it fun to escape the traditional London shutdown over Christmas (no cabs, trains, buses, shops or fun) and had done some excellent googling and haggling to organise a large old house in South West England that could sleep about 30 people. As we knew we would have not a great deal on over Christmas, we jumped at the chance to get out of town and see some of the countryside. Knowing only Jo Jo, Magnus and Dev we said "yep" to her offer and on the 23rd of December hired a car and set off for our first big trip out of London.

Tonedale house was an old country house built by a some guy that built a mill during the industrial revolution and, in good industrialist fashion, built his trophy house attached to the mill. Located in a small town called Wellington in Somerset it had about 50 rooms with a really big lounge room, games room with a pool, table tennis and blackjack table, a totally excellent kitchen and a gigantic formal dining room. It was a good house. The kitchen was the focal point for the house with a BIG oven and a nice table making for a great spot for eating breakfast, reading the paper and generally hanging out with all of our new friends.

We arrived on the evening of the 23rd and set about meeting everyone, playing pool and drinking some beer. The next day we started on the bacon (2.5 Kg of streaky, 2.5 kg of back rashers) for breakfast and did a reconciliation of the food purchased for Christmas dinner. Mags and Dev had organised Christmas dinner and it was a feast, the likes of which would have enough mores for Oliver Twist and us telling stories about it to anyone who would listen.

But before we got to that, Magnus had organised some Clay Target shooting at a nearby farm for Christmas eve, so Michelle and I, Dev, Mags and one of Dev's friends Kate, Mag's boss Scott, his wife Fabi and Scott's two sons Liam and Seamus, a couple of small animals, the gameskeeper from the local African wildlife park, three 19th century boot blacks and a couple of others (those last few might not have actually come along, but it did seem like the car was awfully full) headed off to blow to the crap out of some clays.

It was fun. Shell didn't have a go because she was afraid of not hitting anything but I stepped up and didn't hit a thing with my first try. I later top scored during the competition round (although my team still lost) but got to have a crack at the fast clays and even managed to hit a few of them!

After lunch we went and got some supplies for Christmas day (another few cases of beer) and went to the pub for dinner, and spent the night playing blackjack. Fun but all just designed to kill time before the main event - Christmas dinner. Mags and Dev had procured some excellent produce for the big meal, the piece de resistance being an 11kg bronze turkey that was easily going to fill the industrial sized oven. Despite never having actually cooked a turkey, Magnus bravely had assumed responsibility for the bird and spent Christmas eve researching recipes and techniques for the perfect succulent turkey.

"Make sure there's butter under the skin!"

"Stick an orange up its butt!"

There was no shortage of ideas on how to prepare it, but few actual hands on deck at 6AM when Mags got up to put it on. We got up about 9 and made ourselves a nice cup of tea and some more bacon and eggs whilst we planned the cooking of the ancillaries. Cheese boards, pancakes with salmon and cream cheese, goose fat roasted potatoes, parsnips, carrots, pumpkin, brussel sprouts with bacon and salads were all planned, and mostly peeled where necessary thanks to Jade, Amy and Dev the night before.

But the food wasn't going to cook itself, so with apron on, a wooden spoon in her hand and a gleam in her eye that said "I was made for this moment" Michelle took command of the kitchen. With Magnus taking care of the bird, Shell organised the rest with a willing team of assistants. Orders were issued, Trays were greased, sprouts boiled, potatoes par boiled, vegies roasted, pancakes cooked, turkeys basted, hands, shoulders and fingers burnt, salads prepared, cheese boards set, drinks drunk, dishes washed and generally lots of activity around the place until the bird was taken out, rested and tested.

An intake of breath.

A deep cut in the thigh.

The juices ran clear. It was cooked! At least thats what we thought and Mags began carving. But then on the carve, the juices seemed a bit red. Not cooked through, even though it had spent 6 hours in the oven already. "Bugger it" we thought and wrapped it back up to go into the oven again for another hour and a bit. At this point everything was ready to go and we had to put all the vegies etc back in the various ovens around the place whilst we finalised the bird.

Eventually it was all cooked and we tested it again. Cooked! Despite a small downgrade, from absolutely perfect to almost perfect, the bird was pronounced ready. With that there was a flurry of activity whilst everything was served and in no time we all sat down with a glass of champagne and a plate of the best Christmas dinner one could ask for.

It was a great day and we managed to fill in the rest of the week with plenty of walks in the countryside, drives through the countryside, shopping at the Christmas sales, a proper Devonshire tea in Devon in the shadows of the cathedral at Exeter, plenty of Blackjack ("Monkey!!!!!") and, on the way home a visit to Stonehenge, which I was pretty excited about. Unfortunately I didn't get to back into the stones a la European vacation but it was still one of those great things about the UK where I got to see in the flesh things that have been a part of my consciousness since I can remember remembering. We also went to the Avebury stone circle which was also quite cool but it was so very cold that we retreated to the pub for lunch.

And with that we headed back to London after a great break with new friends and a christmas dinner that will be spoken about for years to come!