Wow - What a Yule!

Saturday 24th December
After unpacking and getting everything set up, Tracey spent the afternoon making snowflake decorations for the Yardarm whilst the rest of us pretty much sat around our new makeshift dining table, drinking and relaxing or feeding the fires.
Visitors came and went and the Yule log went on the main fire sometime late afternoon, the plan being for it to burn throughout Sunday and on into Monday morning. We each made wishes or cast thoughts into the flames of things we wished to get rid of, as is ancient custom for Yule logs - thankfully they are not just chocolate sponge and icing.

Christmas morning chores

Cassius was lit and drying out nicely all afternoon and by 9pm the temperature at the door had reached 350 degrees C... so hot in fact, that it blew the glass out of the thermometer and cooked a roast potato in just 9 minutes!  A worrying amount of smoke was escaping from a crack in the back though, so we calmed things down and shunted the fire over to the other side of the oven, then let it die down.

Christmas morning saw more visitors, bucks fizz (or just fizz), and a breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled egg on toast - perfect. This was followed by Flee making minor repairs to Cassius using some remaining fire cement and Ant getting the Turkey going on the spit.
The boys kept the flames perfectly adjusted all day, with the kettle on it's own fire... constantly on the go, the Turkey over some hot embers and the main fire burning away with the remains of the Yule log just rolled to the edge still smouldering. Another fire was laid inside "pac-man" (an old donated BBQ which was to serve as our hostess trolley to keep things warm if our timings were all out) and a final fourth fire inside Cassius of course for the spuds and veg.

Pac-Man

The Turkey took a little over 3 hours to cook, but unfortunately the 9-minute-spud of the previous night had given us false hope that we would be fine to put them on only once we knew the Turkey was cooked. Sadly Cassius reached only half the heat of the night before and took an absolute age to cook anything, so we transferred the majority of the oven food to Pac-Man to cook whilst we desperately tried to crank up the fires inside the oven and stall the Turkey. We had to have a cut-off point as none of us wanted to eat in the dark, so come 3pm we decided to just go for it and whatever state it was in, would be how it turned out - and actually, it wasn't half bad. The spuds were a little anaemic and the parsnips pretty solid, but the cauliflower cheese was awesome as were the bird, the sprouts, the stuffing balls and the carrot and swede combo. All in all a mighty effort and a mighty meal. Way better than the sandwiches and leftover pizza lunch that Ryan and Gemma had brought with them!, (Becky's Camembert however, did look pretty tasty). After lunch, the washing up was swift as most cooking dishes were single-use metal recyclables - oh what joy! The mead was opened and we retired to the fire and got it roaring. It had not been a cold day at all, but we feared the evening was going to turn chilly and possibly wet. The mist had rolled in quite quickly and everything felt just a teensy bit damp.
Mungo and Rain arrived shortly after 7pm and after a few more drinks, chocolates and presents, it was time for the evening movie... a very short, but memorable episode of "This is Your Life". I remember the programme being a fairly nostalgic and emotional affair when I was a kid, with the guests of the show often ending in tears. Well I'm relieved to say, ours was no different - and thankfully they were tears of laughter. Side-splitting laughter; the very best kind. Our cheeks hurt, our eyes stung and a gob-smacked Tracey took some time to compose herself after the shock and realisation of it all - brilliant. Unfortunately the movie is not suitable for public consumption on account of it being most definitely rated 18. Sorry folks - can't share here! The laughter continued long into the night and I think I crawled into my sleeping bag around 330am.

Best present ever... Cassius' new front door - made by Ant!

I have no idea what went on Boxing day morning, as I was the last one up. Apparently everyone had a bit of a lie-in but mine lasted until 11am - lovely. Tracey came to my tent with her god-awful frostie-the-snowman plastic singing toy thing and let me know we had guests, so it was definitely time to get up. More first time visitors to Rais, who had already been given the tour and were about to get going and enjoy their boxing day. Albeit brief, and I stank of booze and bonfires, it was lovely to see them and good that they got me out of my pit, I was close to going into hibernation - think I will when I get home and have had a bath.... 4 separate fires surrounding you all day plays havoc with your eyes - they need to be shut right now... for a very long time!