When the power fails at Christmas time

Dec 29, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Christmas is a most inconvenient time to have electricity problems, particularly if cooking is involved. Some years ago, I experienced this in London, in the middle of cooking the Christmas lunch of chicken and all the trimmings, but gas was involved.
I noted the time of the failure, which turned out to be crucial – apparently everyone in the district was doing the same thing at the same time. I have not made that mistake since. Since, I start cooking very early in the morning.
My Christmas cake (black cake to Guyanese, rich fruit cake to Brits) is baked and decorated at least a week in advance, ‘fed’ daily with a drizzle of rum over the top. By the end of Boxing Day it is all gone. The Christmas cake should be the first item seen to, ripening is great.
To be caught out in the midst of preparing Christmas lunch is not a happy experience. And being on one’s own on Christmas Day need not be joyless. I spent at least four such in Guyana in the 1990s and without a phone – no communication whatsoever – alone but not lonely. After lunch, I did chores that were left undone in the lead-up, watched TV and read. I did what my gran regularly advised my older brother and me to do – I made my own play.
Poor Guyanese children have to be trained from an early age to get together and “make their own play” – cobble together safe bits and pieces of stuff and create your own toys. Girls can make small dolls from leftover cloth. Shape the body of the doll, and then pack it with scraps of cloth or strong paper (a good way for dressmakers to dispose of scraps).
May we all successfully survive 2018!
Geralda D.

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