Wedding Dress in a week????

We are all set pretty much to head off to the US tomorrow. I can't believe the time is finally here!! It seems quite unbelievable. I was feeling in control of things here enough to venture to a city the other side of the region with Primrose yesterday to check out wedding dresses and see if we could get one ordered for her.

We arrived in the shop not quite knowing what to expect, and there were some amazing dresses We looked through a sucession of catalogues and tried to explain (in vain initially) that we were looking for something on the simpler style. Here brides are decked out in alot of sequins, lace, sparkly bits all over their dresses. It was hard to explain that she really didn't want that - the girl looked at us as if we were slightly mad really!! We looked at fabric samples, beads, all kinds of things. An hour and a half later she was measured up, ideas had been communicated (correctly we hope!!) and she returns next Monday for a fitting as her dress will be all made up - just the hemming etc to add. The dress is then going to be ready a few days after that. We couldn't believe it - forget a 6 month waiting period - just over a week will do the job here!!!! It is a fraction of the cost too so if you are in line for a wedding dress pop over for a couple of weeks and you are good to go!!!!

Oven NOT ready Christmas Turkey

After searching high and low, in three different countries, an oven ready turkey was not to be had. On the Saturday before Christmas, it became painfully obvious that if we wanted a bird on our table for the traditional Christmas Day feast we were going to have to go live. Abi trundled off to the market and poked, prodded, weighed and examined the array of live turkeys on offer from the local villagers. What an unfortunate surprise when she returned with a bird in hand. Then it was my turn to continue the process of preparing the object of our eventual main dish. With an audience of Mummy, our friend S, and 2 of the 3 children it was off with its head. Let me tell you, chopping a turkey’s head off is not as easy as it looks. The thing doesn’t just lay there; it resists to the end, a very short end mind you, but resist it does. S was holding it's flailing wings while the axe was swinging!! We would have paid good money for a "Butterball" at that point. Our daughter was in tears after the deed was done. When I asked Abi why Ezzie was crying the reason was not the cruelty of the act, but that she had missed the act of chopping itself!!! (What kind of children are we raising we wonder???)
Following the killing then there was the plucking, soaking, injecting and the cooking. All of which was also less than conventional. In the end, we had a fairly tasty bird on our table, albeit smaller than we are used to and alot more boney!!

If you ever find yourself in a similar position to this then do get in touch and we will share our tips with you, which according to those who gave them to us is the difference between the turkey being edible or not!!!