Always check what you are volunteering for

Today has been mostly about cooking, in an uncooked sort of way!

My mother is hosting her annual Christmas Eve shindig tomorrow night and, given that she's in her 70's my sister and I try to help out as much as we can these days (not that we haven't always been helpful - though my 15 years or so in the wilderness on the other side of the country when I didn't come home meant I missed out). Mum has a habit of taking on a little more than she can really cope with - and usually she gets through without anyone realising ... though there was the memorable occasion when I was around 16 that she volunteered to cater a buffet for a friend's wedding and when we got home from school at about 4 pm the day before we discovered her passed out on her bed as she'd had a complete panic about not being able to do it and hit the alcohol.... when my father, who had visitation rights that weekend, arrived at 10 pm my sister and I had in fact managed to do most of the planned cooking despite having never done anything like it in the past.

Anyway, several weeks back we volunteered and I got "some salad stuff" as my designated task, oh foolish me, I only asked what exactly she wanted yesterday...... so today I have made coleslaw, potato salad, rice salad, pasta salad, a tomato and mozzarella salad and, of course, the green salad....  As the only veggie in a family of meat eaters (the standard joke is that I must have been adopted) I will be the one eating the salads apparently.

Cooking with 4 dogs underfoot in the kitchen is quite an art form, particularly as they tend to glue themselves to your ankles in case you drop something!  At least this time no one managed to steal anything they shouldn't have (yes, by that I mean Gretchen... who last time I was cooking for something swiped a whole French stick off the side and ate it before I could grab her)

Tomorrow morning my sister and I are taking a couple of the dogs for a walk in the grounds of Chatsworth House before picking up the rest of the Christmas things from the farm shop and then I think we are all done and ready for Christmas.