Halfway through a Christmas lunch and the adults are asleep and the children watching Dr Who. The Christmas pudding is still in the steamer waiting to be broke open and there is a great board full of cheese waiting to be eaten with the quince paste I made a few weeks ago.

The good news is that all the presents have been opened to a general acknowledgement that this has been the best year ever – we had glasses of champagne with a bowl of oysters, smoked salmon and crisps. There was a lurch of recognition when I saw that the oysters had come from Craig Balfour. It seemed right that we ate them, if that is what you do with oysters, drinking Moet & Chandon.

The capon cooked well. We had it with roast potatoes ,sprouts, roasted parsnips ans carrots. The carrots were cooked down in water, honey and crushed cumin seeds and we caught them just before they started to burn.

Listening to Suvjan Stevens and looking forward to the cold capon tomorrow.