The Christmas Special

Dear Paul, Brenda and Mary,

(They haven’t addressed this to my brother, sister, brother and sister-in-law, or nephew, because I’m the only one still living at home. You can almost hear the, “Aw, never mind, dear, we can’t all have successful lives,” tagged on with my name.)

We hope that you are all well at this time of year and that your year has been as prosperous for your bunch as it has ours.

(They add, “bunch,” to make it light-hearted, but we all know this sentence is the literary equivalent of, “Ner-ner-nerner-nerrr!”)

You’ll remember that at the beginning of the year Little Susie took up playing the piano (her sixth instrument!). Well, she has since been offered a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. We are all very proud and Susie was particularly pleased, as the offer arrived on her 8^th birthday, just after she cut her eight-tiered cake.

(I fear Little Susie may have a drink and drug problem by the time she hits her teens).

Meanwhile, Robert has just completed his second PhD at Oxford and his research is said to have propelled the discovery of a cure for AIDs forward by at least 30 years! He is currently in Africa curing millions of AIDs sufferers. We are so proud.

(She’s secretly hoping one of us has AIDs so she can send him over to cure us.)

This is obviously a terribly difficult transition for Robert’s wife, Ruth, and their new twins, Baby Joseph and Baby Lucy, but it does mean that we get many visits and Robert has assured us that he will be home by Christmas Eve.

(I wonder how like the milkman Baby Joseph and Lucy look.)

You will, of course, have seen in the papers that Diane has just sold her internet company for a record-breaking sum and is getting married in the New Year to Sir Philip Rothbeurg VI. She’s now all set to open her new charity (the name is in the process of being copyrighted so I can’t say, but will be sure to send out notifications ASAP), which will shortly be merging with the ‘Make A Wish Foundation.’

She is also in training to swim the Channel before she leaves for her Honeymoon. We are so very proud.

(I sincerely hope Sir Rothbeurg has a moustache and a hairy back. I seem to recall that Diane did.)

Richard and I are both well, as always, and are preparing to move into Belleford Manor in time for Christmas. You’ll see that the picture on the front of the card is an 18^th Century painting of our new home at Christmas time.

You must come and visit when we’ve got the wedding out of the way.

(This obviously translates as, “You’re not important enough to be invited to the wedding, but you must come and admire how much richer than you we are. We promise to pretend we’re not gloating. For a bit.”)

Some Carollers from the local village have just appeared, so I must dash and give them some homemade pie and mulled wine.

(“Haha, I still have time to bake whilst running my Manor house and maintaining my perfect nails.”)

Merry Christmas!

Much love from,

Margaret, Richard, Little Susie, Diane, Philip, Robert, Ruth, Baby Joseph and Baby Lucy. X

Dear Margaret and Richard (& co.),

How lovely to hear from you! The painting of your new home is spectacular (although, I personally find a camera is infinitely faster and more accurate, whilst also having the added benefit of being pocket-sized, unlike a painter).

That’s fantastic news about Little Susie – she was always a bit special. Did you know that Paul also got a scholarship to the RCM? Of course, he wasn’t still an infant at the time. Gosh, it doesn’t seem two minutes ago that Susie was trying to play our piano and weed on the stool.

It’s also great news about Robert; he was always destined for great things. It's so good of him to be helping the sick in Africa. Let’s hope he doesn’t catch anything while he’s over there! It must be so lovely for you to get to spend so much time with the grandkids, but ever so lonely for Ruth I imagine? How does she find spending all her time with her mother-in-law?

And we’re so pleased that Diane is finally engaged! (I remember you were a little worried about her sexual preference after that awful incident at university with the cleaners). And what wonderful news it is about her charity – the change will do her good, especially after her online casino caused her so many compensation problems! And the Channel? Well that is fantastic – she always did have a swimmer’s frame.

We’re all well, thank you for asking: Bethan is still happily married and working with children who often try to stab her; Daniel is still living in sin with his fiancé and lovely son; Mary gave up her place at Cambridge to work in a gift shop and, to be quite honest with you, Paul and I are drunk.

We’ve never been prouder!

I’ve always been of the opinion that perfection is dull, don’t you agree? If you know you’re always going to win, what’s the point in playing the game?

I must run, some youths from town are singing loudly outside and we must go and join in.

Merry Christmas!

The Hudsons x

The Pearl-Clad Food Fraud

I’ve always been aware that I’m no Nigella Lawson or Gordon Ramsay (though my potty mouth may beg to differ), but I’ve always thought that no one of my age really knows how to cook. The elderly know how because that’s what women did in the 50’s, our parents know because they had mothers who were allowed to beat them, and maybe out older sisters know because they took GCSE Home Economics before all they taught you how to make was mini pizzas, but my chef-like qualities are stretched by past with pesto, which I always assumed was perfectly normal for my age bracket.

However, it has recently been brought to my attention that my age bracket is no longer 12-16.

I’m 22. I’m a graduate. I’ve lived by myself for three years. I’ve travelled over a good chunk of the world by myself. I wear pearls and women who wear pearls know how to cook! I’m a massive cheat! I’m a pearl-clad-food-fraud!

I didn’t realise any of this until I visited my friend and found her making stock from scratch.

I’m still not entirely sure I even know what stock is.

She then proceeded to “reduce” the “stock” and freeze the “concentrated” solution in individual pouches.

I found this hilarious.

No one else did.

Now, this friend happens to be the daughter of a chef. A chef who is equally disgusted by both my inability to make soup and my lack of culinary imagination. You see, alongside my totally non-existent cooking skills, I appear to have a phobia of raw meat …and any other food I was not served as a child. It is because of this that she forced me to eat a spoon of jellied pork dripping (I do not believe it is only me who would be reluctant to put that in my mouth) and then got me to help her daughter make a meatloaf.

Once I got stuck into squeezing the meat out of sausages, it wasn’t so bad (kind of like if you’ve been gardening all day and you’re already mucky, you probably don’t mind sticking your hands in a bag of manure, but it doesn’t mean you want to play with poo every day), and the end product looked pretty good, until I discovered I couldn’t eat it without wanting to be sick.

I have no idea why.

Since then, my friend has tried to encourage me to help her cook and even got me to stuff a chicken (quite a feat considering I can’t even pick up a pack of frozen chicken breasts without squealing). I screamed a fair amount and cried a little bit when I decided that the skin felt like a dead old lady. I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to do to little old ladies what I did to that chicken and, therefore, I refuse to do it again.

I know it’s pathetic and really very weird and I don’t know where it comes from (my mum has a genuine phobia of pâté but is fine with all other meat and my dad long to butcher and eat pretty much every animal he sees, so it can’t be them) but I reckon it’s the surface cleaner adverts that make everything raw meat touches bright pink and then kills a baby. Every time I go near a chicken breast, I have to wash my hands at least twice. Seriously.

So let’s blame them and leave it at that. Perhaps I’ll sue…

So we know I hate raw meat, but that doesn’t solve why making cookies and pies puzzles me so much. I’ve told myself (and the scary chef lady) that it’s because I’ve never lived near a supermarket so can’t buy fresh food regularly, but that’s a lie ‘cause there was a grocers two minutes from my old flat. I’ve said that was because no one ever showed me how, but that’s a lie ‘cause my flatmate always cooked meals from scratch and asked me to come help, to which I responded by squirming on the couch and crying, “No! Don’t make me!!” I’d say that it was because I didn’t have time after getting in from Uni or work so late, which is true, but I still managed to find an hour to sit on Facebook every night. And, finally, I think I’ve figured out what it is: a combination of three things.

1. I don’t think about food until I’m hungry, by which point I’ve decided I have to eat within the next 15 minutes or I’ll die. (This is true – every time I’ve tried to make cookies, I’ve eaten the cookie dough before it even reaches the baking tray, and this morning I wanted toast for breakfast, but had cereal I don’t really like because toast would take too long).

2. I have a Monica Geller-like issue with clutter and mess. I cannot work when cramped up and even used to organise my friends’ desks at school so that their work book, pencil and ruler were all in line and equidistant from the table edge. I simply cannot be doing with making a mess in my kitchen.

I have also been thinking back and in my first year of Uni I had a HUGE kitchen with lots of work surfaces and I did lots of cooking and tried out new recipes; in my third year, there was significantly less space and I hade about eight different simple dishes I would rotate; and in my second year the kitchen was roughly the size of a small bath with one square foot of work surface and 6 housemates. That year I either had take-out or didn’t eat.

3. Pure, unadulterated laziness.

If I can buy a tasty pasta sauce that you heat up, add some frozen peas and eat within 5 minutes, why would I spend 40 minutes making one from scratch that won’t taste as good and will make a big fat mess?

The experience and healthier lifestyle is not worth the bitter disappointment I feel in the crap I’ve produced by the end.

So, I’ve no doubt that my friend will continue to try and get me to help out in the kitchen and I’ve no doubt that I will continue to look for a man who loves to cook to marry. And, as there is no cure for my laziness or drama queen stomach, I will just have to start by looking for a new house: one that either has a massive kitchen or a Chinese take-out next door.