Cooking Day

Boxing Day.....this has always been a family day of activity....brisk walks along beaches, playing french cricket with the children, throwing balls for the various dogs whilst walking along cliff paths....
It was necessary to keep active because a huge weight  of food had to be worked off!
Now on Boxing Day I cook.....I do the things I used to do on Christmas Day before the church got me!
Last year was the ill fated sea food banquet so this year  we have a bird!  It is the smallest chicken we have ever seen   my mother would have called it a pullet!
Fortunately I got some lovely fat ducks breasts plus sausages in bacon etc  so our Christmas dinner of poultry will be fine.... I think
My daughter in law is bringing the pudding....David has put bottles of wine in the fridge....I think it will be alright.
I went to pour milk into the dogs bowl again this morning.....Forty years of sharing the first milk of the day is proving a habit hard to throw off!
Its no use pretending I'm not sad....so I  leave you with this  piece from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran which was one of my sons favourites.

Your children are not your children

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself .

They come through you but not from you

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow

Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams

You may strive to be like then but seek not to make them like you

For life goes not backward  nor tarries with yesterday

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth

Let your bending in the Archers hand be for gladness.