Christmas Ham

Christmas eve, and as a change from the usual festive routine (you know, elbow deep in sausagemeat with Slade playing on the CD) I found myself preparing for Christmas the Australian way, and there's nothing more Australian than browsing the hams in David Jones' food hall, even if I've no intention of buying one.

The Christmas Ham is every bit as important on the Aussie Christmas dinner table as the turkey is on ours; butchers and supermarkets are full of them while the turkey's more difficult to get your hands on. Actually, the ham would probably be a better bet than the turkey, but apart from the fact they're huge (and very expensive) I somehow can't get past the need for a turkey, even in these balmy conditions.

The Christmas food shopping was left to the eighteenth hour because I'd arranged to meet up with Steve's partner Scott for the traditional hunting and gathering ceremony. But then Darren got called out to Wagga Wagga at half midnight to collect a sick patient (in the style of some sort of 1980's Flying Doctors episode) and there was nothing else for it but to go food shopping with Ella, so thank goodness for emergency snakes. (And incidentally, they simply call it Wogga, though I'd still like to go there).

Anyway, Scott turned up with Steve and their friend Laura, who's visiting from North Wales, so it was a motley band of five of us (plus the pushchair) doing the hunting and gathering, which probably meant we spent twice as much money and had twice as much fun picking out the picnic. All we need now is the weather. The forecast says rain, I'm just hoping they've got it wrong.