Old faithful

The last 36 hours:
Early am - last minute shopping:
"In practice this means sallying forth for the freshest vegetables (sprouts, leeks, parsnips, onions, carrots, celery, swede, potatoes) and fruit...because they need to last over the whole holiday. Everyone else will be doing the same of course so do get out early..."

Bugger! Already failed :( this year I was promising to be faithful to Delia so that she wouldn't send her little elves to blow up the boiler/oven/insert electrical appliance choice here. So far I've had a lazy breakfast, had a shower, and decided on my outfit of the day to have lunch with the lovely Tizz and Fizz.

So, 11.22am (would Delia count this as early?) and I'm having a cuppa and considering making some pastry for mince pies. At least the turkey has arrived (timetabled for mid-morning) and I do intend to make the soup and prepare the veggies tomorrow which is actually a day behind schedule...how does this woman do it?! But at 3pm tomorrow I can spend some quality time baking and singing Christmas carols...no wait, we've just re-read it and if I do those things today I'm actually ahead of schedule! Wooooo! However, I'm thinking that crowing about it is not the best plan or the elves will blow something up for sure. 

Please Delia, please be kind. My folks are coming for dinner and the last time they did the boiler broke and we had to huddle round the fire and wear vests for warmth...please let us have this one with no broken appliances!