It is hard to believe that after all the weeks of preparation, Christmas has been and gone. I hope that you all had a lovely time. My brother's lovely girlfriend Amy has departed back to New York (I am not sure whether she survived the madness of our family!!!), the rest of the family have gone home and my husband is back at work so the house is feeling eerily quiet today. Perfect for a long soak in the bath and a spot of tidying up! We had a wonderful Christmas. Christmas Eve was spent with Kathy Brown and supper with her lovely family - see Jonathan's photos of the delicious food on his blog. We had fun playing party games and I even tried to play the piano - sight reading was never my forte - it must have provided entertainment for those watching as Simon (who sings very well) tried to keep pace with my awful timing! These are the photos Jonathon took of the Christmas fondant fancies I took as a present! Very bright icing!!!

Christmas lunch with delicious (if I say so myself) The turkey cooked for 14 hours and yet was really moist. There are two theories for this - my brother is sure it was the turkey injector that he bought from Mexico (and which we had all dismissed as a joke) which I had used to inject ginger wine into the turkey whilst it was cooking. I was convinced it was the mascapone and wild mushroom stuffing under the skin! In truth it was probably a combination of both. My mum's Christmas pudding (made to our family recipe) was the best we had ever tasted.

I had some wonderful foody presents which I will share with you as soon as my camera (which died on Christmas Eve) is fixed! What did Santa Clause bring you?