What was your Christmas menu ?

[chataigner]

Family gathering of 6 : Isabelle and myself, our three young : 24, 22, 19 (all 3 still at Uni) and Isa's father.

Foie gras - pain d'épices - orange/onion chutney - salad (all 3 home made/prepared)
Wine : Montbazillac

Beef Wellington (fillet, mushroom "stuffing", wrapped in parma ham in puff pastry case) - sprouts with chestnuts and bacon - parsnips with pink peppers - roast spuds with rosemary
Wine : St Emilion 2000

Carré d'Auriac - Vieux Comte - Coulommiers - green salad
More St Emilion 2000

Mango and Kiwi Pavlova
Wine : Champagne

Finished with daft games until around 1am.

 

[AndyP]

8 for lunch, 5 of us, the 3 outlaws (mum, dad and eldest sister)

Wife and 2 kids all with heavy colds, all coughed and spluttered all night with 39° temps. Off to the docs this morning.

Didn't really have a starter went straight from aperitif to main.

Aperitif - stuffed crocodile wished down with local poiré

Main - Boeuf en croute - chestnut and mushroom stuffing, roasted spuds and parsnips, sprouts, beans, carrots butternut squash (our own).
Whine - only the kids (I don't like sprouts, parsnips etc). We also had St Emilion but only 2011.

Pudding- Xmas Pud with creme fraiche laced with brandy , Mince Pies, Bouche de noel (strawberry and lemon)

Actually finished a game of monopoly, probably the first time ever.

 

[Rob]

Imagine that...someone living in the Perigord having Foie Gras....that would be like me having blackberry and apple pie for lunch

Having said that...I've got 3 goose livers in the freezer one of which will be joining a nice Sauterne and a fig compote for New Year

 

[RogerS]

Just me as LOML took her mother out for Xmas lunch. So...

down t'pub...first time ever for me on a Christmas Day..
Two pints of Butty Bach
One pint of HPA

walk home to
Bottle of Badger First Call
M & S Lasagne ready-meal.

Perfect!

 

[Rod]

Four members missing due to flu ( which had been going around the family for a couple of weeks) so only 8 but the youngest Granddaughter (7) who had been up since 05:00 slept through the meal!

Champers and party food at 11:00 followed by parcel opening.
Lunch at 15:00
Roast Turkey Crown on a bed of pork sausage meat, chestnuts and herbs, pigs in blankets, Roast potatoes, roasted vegs, steamed vegs, sprouts, peas and corn, Mushroom Wellington, braised red cabbage, bread sauce, cranberries in port.
Christmas Pudding, brandy sauce, custard, cream, Chocolate Yule Log.

2005 Chateau Moulin du Barrail Bordeux Superieur
2012 Pouilly Fuisse
2010 Pudding Wine Sauternes

We did have a selection of cheeses, mince pies etc but everybody far too full!!

We'd also cooked a 4 bird roast which we sent around to my elder daughter and her sick family.
My wife never believes me when I say we buy far too much food - I've taken photos of it this year as evidence! [emoji3]

Left overs today!!

Rod

 

[Phil]

Just 3 of us for lunch. Wife, myself and youngest heir. Eldest heir and new DIL away on holiday. MIL at her son's place (Yes!)

We generally skip the foreplay and go straight into the main event.
Pork leg baked in foil to keep the juices, then sliced back into the gravy to keep it moist.
Oven baked veggies (very healthy) and rice.
Finish it off with fruit salad and ice cream.
A bottle of KWV 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon between son and myself. (wife does not partake in alcohol - gets drunk and disorderly!)

And then some coffee and chocolates .............

Cheers
Phil

 

[Mike G]

I can't remember. Turkey I think. I was much more bothered by the lack of lighting in our house. It failed on christmas eve. I went methodically around the lighting circuit, removing the live feed sequentially from each fitting, to find out where the fault was, and ended up with it still tripping even when all the fittings were disconnected. I guess that means the fault is between the consumer unit and the first fitting, here:



What this doesn't show is 3 junction boxes all touching each other, with a spaghetti of wires stuffed into the floor. It also doesn't show the rat droppings and food detritus:



Three hours on christmas morning, and 3 hours on boxing day, and the only solution I can come up with is to abandon the existing circuit and wire an entirely new one. I've done that, but it can't be connected to the consumer unit until I can get an electrician here, so that'll be at least another night bathing by torch and candlelight. Luckily, we've eaten so much that we don't need to cook by candlelight.

By the way, this is one of the reasons we bought this hovel in the first place:



Other than that, homemade christmas cake (baked in October and laced with brandy regularly since) with half inch thick homemade marzipan. That's all that counts.......

 

[RogerS]

TBH Mike, nothing to stop you making a temporary connection to the consumer unit.

Chances are it's where rodents have nibbled through the wire. Is it an RCD or MCB? Is it a split consumer unit with one half protected by an RCD and the half part not? If so then one thing to be aware of going forward is to avoid temporarily picking up a neutral from a circuit connected to one half and the live coming from the other half. Called a 'borrowed neutral' and can give rise to random tripping of the RCD.

 

[kirkpoore1]

I went to some friends' house, where they had their usual Christmas dinner party. I think there were 14 in attendance. Dinner included roast beef, mash potatoes with brown gravy, green salad, some kind of vegetable and cheese casserole, green been casserole, two kinds of stuffed mushrooms, green olives from Jordan, cranberry sauce, and home baked sourdough bread (my contribution). Dessert was pumpkin pie, homemade custard over blueberries and raspberries, and various kinds of cookies.

I'm happy to say that the soughdough loaf vanished leaving barely a trace. The green olives tasted nothing like any other olives I've tried. The hosts are archeologists and were on a dig in Jordan last summer. The olives came from the farmer who's land they were excavating, and I have no idea how he pickled them.

I think everyone went home stuffed.

Kirk

 

[Mike G]

TBH Mike, nothing to stop you making a temporary connection to the consumer unit.

Chances are it's where rodents have nibbled through the wire. Is it an RCD or MCB? Is it a split consumer unit with one half protected by an RCD and the half part not? If so then one thing to be aware of going forward is to avoid temporarily picking up a neutral from a circuit connected to one half and the live coming from the other half. Called a 'borrowed neutral' and can give rise to random tripping of the RCD.

Two RCDs with a bank of ELBs, and the thing which stops me opening it up is that I saw an electrician working on it previously: it was jammed solid with cables. There is such a tangle of wires, with so little space, that I could have a serious accident. I'm sure I'll be able to get someone here tomorrow.

 

[RogerS]

Shame I'm not closer as I'd gladly have come over and given you a hand with it. Hope you get sorted.

Bit of lateral thinking, you could disconnect the cable from that first fitting to the consumer unit then make up a flying lead fused at 2A or 5A, connect to the fitting and feed it from a 13A socket.

 

[AndyP]

Spaghetti? Bet you've not seen wiring like this before.



I've got at least 3 of these.

 

[RogerS]

This is my favourite present from LOML.....themed to perfection!

 

[chataigner]

Spaghetti? Bet you've not seen wiring like this before.



I've got at least 3 of these.

My former house, the 17th C forge, was originally wired like that, but just to add to the fun, it was all done in one colour - black, no colour codes to help decode it at all. :eusa-doh: :eusa-doh:

 

[kirkpoore1]

Spaghetti? Bet you've not seen wiring like this before.



I've got at least 3 of these.

Ummm....Wow. I mean...Just wow. What is this junction box doing?

Kirk

 

[AndyP]

Kirk, I've long since given up to trying to understand the french wiring "norm" but these "junction" boxes do appear to be within the regulations. No idea what it is doing though.

 

[Peter Gee]

Kirk, I've long since given up to trying to understand the french wiring "norm" but these "junction" boxes do appear to be within the regulations. No idea what it is doing though.

I assume the regulations in France are not greatly different to those here in Italy. If so, the wiring is always done with single wires, rather that t&e cables, which are fed through plastic conduit buried in the wall/ceiling. The boxes are to give access to the wiring in the event of problems or changes - which makes it pretty straight forward to add or change things. You have to also bear in mind (again, assuming that France is the same as Italy) that there are no "rings" connecting outlets, the whole thing is based on spur wiring. It takes a bit of getting used to if you are familiar with UK domestic wiring, but is actually safe and easy. But, yes, it can look a bit "dramatic" to the British eye, unless you have worked in the UK exhibition trades, when you will be very familiar with it already.

Oh yes, we had goose, after a very nice home made ravioli in broth. Usual sort of thing...

 

[kirkpoore1]

Kirk, I've long since given up to trying to understand the french wiring "norm" but these "junction" boxes do appear to be within the regulations. No idea what it is doing though.

I assume the regulations in France are not greatly different to those here in Italy. If so, the wiring is always done with single wires, rather that t&e cables, which are fed through plastic conduit buried in the wall/ceiling. The boxes are to give access to the wiring in the event of problems or changes - which makes it pretty straight forward to add or change things. You have to also bear in mind (again, assuming that France is the same as Italy) that there are no "rings" connecting outlets, the whole thing is based on spur wiring. It takes a bit of getting used to if you are familiar with UK domestic wiring, but is actually safe and easy. But, yes, it can look a bit "dramatic" to the British eye, unless you have worked in the UK exhibition trades, when you will be very familiar with it already.

Oh yes, we had goose, after a very nice home made ravioli in broth. Usual sort of thing...

Yes, but Peter, being where I'm from I'm used to branch circuits. What I'm not used to is a rat's nest like that. I mean, why is that junction box not fastened to anything? Why are so many wires coming together at one point--shouldn't they be spread around the house? If it's being used for distribution, why isn't there a proper subpanel? You guys all complain about us having unsafe tools, but that? Amazing, even for France.

BTW, in double-checking my answer, I finally figured out what Bob talks about when he says "Consumer Unit". We call the equivalent a "breaker panel" (as in circuit breaker) or sometimes a service panel, and they typically look like this:

.
The subpanel I mentioned would look like the one below on the left, with the cover off:

Kirk
who has put away all the decorations and eaten all the leftovers, so now it's just January.

 

[AndyP]

Kirk, some of what I have discovered here would make you hair stand on end but a complete house rewire is out of the question