Keep Calm...

Another 2017, making 16,257 - that's 27% done!

I hope tomorrow to have some time to go back over the first few chapters and tidy them up a bit - there's one scene I already know needs to be told from another POV, for example. I know that it's not the NaNo way to edit as you go, but I'm ahead of schedule, and anything that makes the revision process more bearable has to be good, as far as I'm concerned!

Right. off to tackle the ironing instead.

My brother, two of my cousins, and one cousin’s baby daughter invited themselves over for lunch today. That sounds worse than it was – my brother called and said, “We thought we might stop by next weekend,” and I said, “Lunch or dinner?”

Then, worrying that I’d been too abrupt on the phone, and they might not think we were delighted for them to come (which we were) I sent invitations, asking them to a Whitley-style Sunday Lunch.

My maternal grandparents, Olwyn and Elfed Whitley, had their four children, their husbands and wives, and the eight grandchildren round for a Sunday lunch at HQ every week throughout my childhood. When they started to get older, it became every other week, or we’d have big celebrations at my mother or aunt’s house instead.

Even now they’ve passed on, the family still makes sure it gets together for big events, usually at Sunday lunchtime, and now featuring grandchildren’s spouses, partners and children. We’re really quite numerous at this point, and many of us live far away from Wales (we're almost four hours drive, as are my cousins in London) but we all make the effort to be together for the big occasions.

Anyway, so when I was trying to decide what to feed my guests, since we were right at the end of our food budget for the month, I thought, “How on earth did Grandma do it? How do Mum and Dad do it now?”

And then I realised. They cook our favourite, traditional, heritage dishes – sometimes more, sometimes less. So I started making a list.

Today’s Menu:


Starters

Tuna pate on toast

(This was the start of every Sunday at HQ, because people never arrived at the same time, and it was something easy for everyone to nibble on. An appropriately aged grandchild – usually me or my brother - was nominated pate monitor on arrival, and had to make it and hand it round.)

Mains

Mum’s Devilled Chicken Drumsticks
Dad’s Rice Salad
Grandma’s Stuffed Baked Potatoes
Auntie Barbara’s Shallot Tart
Green salad
Bread
Crisps

(We will be eating leftovers for the next few days...)

Dessert

Brought by my guests!

Chocolate pudding and cream
Emma’s fairy cakes

(I also bought after dinner chocolates to pass round, like we always did at HQ, but I’ve just realised I forgot them and they’re still in the cupboard. Bother.)


I made the potatoes on Wednesday, because they freeze really well, and reheat in 40 minutes. The chicken I marinated last night, so it just needed roasting today. The tart was new for me, but turned out well. And everything else was very straightforward, and was prepared before people arrived. I love having family round, and realise now why my family have always catered in this way. And after so many years of helping Mum and Dad, or Grandma and Granddad, prepare, I found I knew exactly what needed to be done.

And now I’m having a cup of peppermint tea and a rest.

In a wonderful twist of metaphor, we’re having new doors put in today.

This is fantastic, because in the five years we’ve lived in this house, we’ve never been able to enter through the front door, and now the patio doors at the back are sticking so badly that you have to cross your fingers, turn around three times and spit before you attempt to lock or unlock them.

But it’s also very fitting for the first day of this new blog, and the stage of my writing life I currently find myself at.

I’ll post more tomorrow about how I reached this point, but for now, suffice to say that the last couple of years have felt like I’ve been wandering lost in a long, eerily lit corridor of doors and windows. And every time I cautiously approach an ajar door, it slams in my face, just as all the other doors and windows around me also bang shut.

So, I’ve decided to make my own doors, in my own corridor, all with perfectly oiled hinges and no locks. And I’m going off in search of other corridors, and other doors, to see if they could use a spot of oil too. Or even a key.

I’m making my own opportunities. I’m chasing every possibility. I’m writing what I love, making what makes me happy, and working damn hard at it too. I’m not giving up on my dream of being a writer, and of staying at home with my daughter while she’s very young.

I’m keeping calm and writing on.