The house is now a quieter place. The eldest two children have gone back to university and the rest of us need to fall back into a different rhythm.

There are of course advantages, the likelihood of being swept up into a bear hug by the nineteen year old son are substantially reduced and the general level of screeching has been reduced.

The final family meal was Friday night. I had planned a feast of falafel, lamb, pitta and miscellaneous tapas but was told that one of our number didn’t like falafel, never had done, and I would think again.

So I suggested beans with guacamole, fried chicken, wraps and tacos. This got a more positive response provided the beans were better than the ones we had for a Sunday breakfast in Brighton a couple of months ago. I hadn’t had the beans but I was told this would be a tall order.

I started with the beans. I cribbed part of the recipe from the  Brindisa book on Spanish cooking I was given for Christmas.

An onion was finely chopped and cooked off in olive oil until soft and golden. Crushed garlic and chopped chilli was added together with a large roasted red pepper, also finely chopped and finally a fresh bay leaf. Once all that had taken on some colour a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes were stirred in and it was all brought to a simmer. I then stirred in three tins of haricot beans and seasoned it all with plenty of salt, pepper and paprika. It was a left to cook for an hour so whilst everything was put together.

Chicken breasts were put on to fry in oil with salt, pepper and more paprika. As they cooked in a sliced onion and pepper were thrown in. Once the chicken was done I sliced it up and stirred in some Mole sauce (a Mexican chilli sauce made with chocolate) at which point it seemed like a good idea to stir a teaspoon of the Mole sauce into the beans. I loosen the chicken up with a glug of beer.

Finally I made the guacamole. Four avocados were mashed with a wooden masher. A finely chopped red onion was stirred in along with chopped tomatoes (if I had been doing it properly I should have skinned a deseeded the tomatoes – but most days I think life is too short for the skinning and deseeding of tomatoes), crushed garlic, chilli, lime juice, olive oil, a dash of tabasco and more salt and pepper.

We ate it all with wraps and tacos, grated cheese and salad, hot chilli sauce and cooling yogurt.

The kids seemed to enjoy it although I never got to hear if the beans were better than the ones we had in Brighton?

Once the food was eaten they started on the packing for journeys down south.

So that was a curious Christmas and probably the first completely sober Christmas Day that I have had for the best part of the last 35 years.

I should probably start by saying ‘thank you’ to the doctors and nurses who were working in the walk in centre in Arrowe Park and so were able to see me on Christmas Day and prescribe me the antibiotics I needed to keep me a few steps further from death’s door than I might otherwise have been.

It was surprisingly quiet up there.

I guess most people feeling ill were staying at home in the hope that a further 24 hours would see them through. I had been of that camp until around midday when I attempted to shuck an oyster and found myself shaking so much there was greater chance of me removing a finger than the oyster being shucked. A GP friend was duly consulted by way of telephone. He was able to supply a medical name to the shakes (‘the rigors’). Apparently these combined with the periodic hot flushes I was also coming down with were signs that a serious infection was about to be unleashed somewhere inside me.

So off to Arrowe Park we went.

There was some initial confusion on being called for the nurse. There were only three people sat waiting to see someone but it transpired that at least two of them were called Ralph. So when my name was called I found myself in competition with a three year old and his anxious parents. The confusion was sorted and the three year old was sent back to sit down.

The nurse took a long list of details, gave me a small plastic container for ‘a sample’ and suggested that it would be another few hours before I would be able to see a doctor but in the meantime the most important thing was that I produce ‘a sample’.

Unfortunately I did not feel in any desperate need to produce a sample so I positioned myself next to the water dispenser and drank my way through about three pints of water. There was still no stirrings of a sample but I was called back to see the nurse. A doctor could see me later that afternoon. In the meantime there was no reason why I could not go home but I would have to come back with the sample.

So we went home for an hour or so to watch some more presents being opened.

We were back there at 5.00 having left instructions at home for the final preparations of the food so it would be ready by the time we were back.

I saw the doctor. There was more confusion. He was hard of hearing and I was not speaking clearly. So when I explained that I had suffered from a urinary infection before Christmas he expressed some surprise that I should be there on Christmas Day for an ear infection.

Confusion cleared up he tested the sample and duly prescribed more water and the necessary antibiotics and we were back out after only half an hour.

At home they had not been able to wait any longer for food and a large part of Christmas dinner had been eaten by the time we got back.

I had a roast potato and a slice of the capon by which time I was ready for bed.

So Christmas passed in a blur of sobriety and the slightly hallucinogenic effect of whatever infection was passing through me.

In the meantime we did a few walks, I made a particularly good bolognese sauce and there was a general sense of relaxation.

There was  no fatted calf to welcome home the only son but he he did get a pretty fine roast chicken.

The chicken had been picked up some months go from The Farmer’s Market since when it has languished near the bottom of the freezer waiting for an opportunity to do good. Its time came today.

It came out to defrost last night and was cooked late this afternoon.

As always the most important thing to remember was to take out the small plastic bag of giblets. It was replaced with half a lemon and and half a red onion, some garlic and a fistful of herbs.

The rest of the lemon was squeezed over the bird before it was given a good dusting of salt, pepper and paprika. It then went into the oven for about 90 minutes.

We had it with crusty rice and salad listening to Miles Davis.

It transpires you send the only son to university for 3 three months and he comes back a fan of Tom Waits and jazz. How do these things happen?

At yesterday’s Farmer’ Market I more or less visited and bought something from every stall to a certain extent stocking up for Christmas.

The most important job of the morning was to make sure the chicken stall was there so I could get in my order for a capon for Christmas lunch. Now that the chicken stall isn’t there every month they have lost their regular pitch to the right as you walk in as a consequence of which there was a panicky few seconds as I looked round the hall to try and find them. Fortunately the men who breed the chickens have distinctive beards and they were spotted. I put in my order and was told to be back for the evening of 22 December to pick it up. I now have less than two weeks to work out what to stuff it with.

Next was lunch which was going to be a steak sandwich. There was a fine selection to be had from the man with a grey beard bigger than mine. I managed to find one that wouldn’t face me over lunch and resisted the temptation to buy another bag of potatoes.

There was a time when there were more children in the house a bag of potatoes in the basement bought from The Farmer’s Market wouldn’t last for more than a couple of weeks so I got into the habit of buying a bag every time I went. Now they are starting to stack up in the basement.

Lunch also meant I had to buy a French baguette into which to stuff the steak.

Then onto cheese. There are always two stands selling cheese (and occasionally one or two others) – Lancashire and Cheshire. I bought impressive lumps of both – the Lancashire was tasty and the Cheshire was old. No doubt I shall be making use of them both in my lunchtime sandwiches come January.

It was then on to Wards to buy fish for tea. Slabs of hake to be dusted in flour then cooked hot olive oil and smothered in finely chopped parsley, a squirt of lemon juice before being eaten with potatoes.

Sunday morning was spent buying a Christmas tree from Church Farm. I did this in the company of the youngest daughter who had not gone to bed until around 3.00pm that morning and was clearly anxious to get the purchase out of the way sooner rather than later so that she could get home to bed. To a certain extent this worked to my advantage as for once we managed to avoid buying the most expensive tree available on account of its size but I would have liked to have spent more time looking at the grey diluted light over the Dee.

Sunday afternoon I made beer. Sadly I have left it too late for Christmas Day but with luck and and a following wind it should be ready for New Year’s Eve when no doubt it can have a go at ruining some persons evening. There were a couple of moments of panic that came with the brewing process. The first was after I had scrubbed out the brewing bin and went down to the basement to find the can of malt. I was certain I had bought this last year but with the tidying up done around parties in the basement since there was no saying where it might have gone. In fact there was in that it was gone. I decided that the best way to track it down was to give a good half hour between each scour of the basement in the hope that in the meantime my eyes would find somewhere elsewhere to focus. This eventually worked and the tin was eventually located somewhere quite close to just under my nose. The second panic came as I took out the bag of brewer’s sugar that I was convinced had been lurking in a drawer for the last few months. I was about to pour it into the mix when I noticed the sugar was in fact salt. Disaster averted I found the bag of sugar elsewhere. The tub of mash, sugar, yeast and water is now safely ensconced in the basement and wrapped in a protecting placket the better to help all that sugar turn to alcohol.

Sunday evening was spent cooking a pheasant with potatoes and cider and very good it was too.