Huh, family traditions

I don't like Christmas cake (or pudding) but Mum loves it so I just finished making my maternal aunt's Christmas/Celebration cake recipe and now it is in the oven and I am nursing a sore wrist. It's really a very simple recipe, there's just A LOT OF IT to be mixed together, mostly by hand. Seriously, a mass quanitity of dried and glace fruit goes into this thing and once I'd chopped it all up and set it to marinating in alcohol a few days ago, the idea it would all fit in a 20x20cm cake tin was laughable. But every year it does.

(And yes, I should have made it weeks ago, but Mum was saying 'Tell me how much fruit we need!', I'm saying, 'It's right there on the recipe!' and then she kept forgetting to buy it and then it was too hot ... you get the idea.)

Also cooked tonight was the marinated duck Maryland from market along with pan-roasted purple and orange carrots with crispy sage and some peas. Oh yeah. Reminder to self: do not order anything Maryland in a restaurant, there is no dignified way to get all the meat off.

(I kept my dress clean all the way through cooking the meal, sat down to eat and two minutes later was going, 'oh, this just not fair', while looking at grease spots on my bodice. That duck was tricky.)

Happy things?

Animal families photos

And check out the Great Dane being so gentle with a four-week-old kitten.

"I will climb this mountain! And give you a hug!"