Boxing Day 2017 2100

I never predicted feeling as exhausted as I did on Christmas morning but I had predicted being back home by noon. In fact I was back for 1130.

I tucked in to what would constitute my entire Christmas day consumption, a bacon and egg baguette and eventually took a nap. I think I felt even worse after that than I had in the morning.

Then of course it was time to play Santa at Annie's party. The Santa outfit, despite having only been worn on half a dozen occasions and stored in a rucksack all year between outings, is looking decidedly grubby. I may need to try and source a good quality washable one in future although it will not be easy from here.

I did my bit and afterwards duly posed for photographs. When Annie was otherwise engaged towards the end of the party, Stephanie fiddled with the music machine to get it to play Kevin Bloody Williams' rather ribald take on Ho Ho Ho! At this point and with the dean there, we felt it prudent to depart the room and stand outside innocently having a smoke, leaving Annie to face the not-so-literal music.

She of course was instantly aware of what the song lyrics are but the joke was on us for the children there simply danced to it and none of the Chinese, including, unbelievably, the dean, twigged!

Afterwards I think the entire Lanzhou Regiment of Peace Corps descended on my flat. All American and sporting such names as Lincoln, Denver and Christa – where do they get them from??

Today's dinner went almost as planned. The exception was that the 2lbs of frozen peeled king prawns I had bought for the curry, on partial defrosting after five hours out of the freezer turned out to be shell-on. Thankfully Steph arrived early to help with the peeling, after which we should probably have gone to Number One People's Hospital for frostbite treatment.

I was the only one to leave a small amount of curry on my plate and that merely due to gastric space restrictions, it was good and so were the chapattis. The crumble was delicious and despite my reservations, I acceded to the girls' demand to make yak milk custard. It was declared creamier than with cows' milk although that says more about their ignorance of how cornflour, eggs and heat affect consistency than any supposed improvement by using powdered yak milk!

Nobody left hungry, that's for sure and the next challenge is making pizzas on Thursday. It has to be a year since I last made them and I have a different breadmaker now so will enter uncharted waters. I suppose I could hand make the dough if it goes south.