Thanksgiving

Kate asks us yesterday, “Isn’t tomorrow your Thanksgiving?” We say yes, and proceed to talk about wonderful foods that we don’t know how to cook, Squanto and Pancake Day (a UK Fat Tuesday that sounds awesome).

The day starts as any other, though, for the first time, the “bus scoile” rolls past us and our little neighbors wave at us from the window in their chipper uniforms. We describe to Phil the concept of okra and he says, “Your Thanksgiving dinner must be like our Christmas dinner.” We tell him no, that though the two meals are similar, we Americans actually have two big eating holidays only a month apart. That’s why we’re fat, I said––that and the fact that, in describing okra and so many other Southern dishes, we use the word “fried”. The English, for Christmas dinner, have a fruitcake-like Christmas pudding, which looks exciting not because of the pastry itself, but rather the fact that, to be proper, it is lit on fire.

We are cut off from home and the ability to call, and it makes us a little wistful. We are surprised, then, that Phil will not tell us what is for dinner, even though he keeps dipping into the cottage to smell it (and I’ll vouch for him, it smells savory and delicious; thick, full scent like a pea soup fog). It unfolds: turkey, mash, gravy, roasted potatoes (one of my favorites here), roasted parsnips, carrots, celery & stilton soup, and dipping bread. Soon afterward, Chris confesses that she has been looking for a whole turkey, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie everywhere, but we had to settle for turkey breast, apple pie & cream, and bread & butter pudding. We tell Chris we may need to be rolled to our caravan after a meal like this, or maybe we can just butter up the sides of the doors and squeeze in.

So what are we thankful for? Your support, prayers, and everything else. A great English family in Ireland. Drinking Potcheen (Irish moonshine) with Doney, Phil & Chris’ son-in-law, who is so Irish we can’t understand anything he is saying; and rapping a song written by his twelve year-old son.

And Phil, two days off surgery for bladder cancer, is working and receiving “a right bollocksing” for it from his wife. He says, in Phil fashion, “I’m going to [expletive deleted] beat it!” He’s full of life, and determined to stay so as long as he can, and I’m so thankful to have been around that for these past three weeks.