Mulled Wine, Anyone?

Woke with a slight headache yesterday morning. Ok, it was more like someone had climbed into my skull and was attacking it with a sledgehammer. We had a Christmas party round ours on Saturday night and I got very much into the festive spirit - and several other spirits too. I had of course made a large batch of mulled wine, which was drunk with gusto. Then came out the bubbly - a very rare treat in Thailand -, followed by some red wine and finally several glasses of rather nice port. Well, it's Christmas, it's compulsory.

With the intention of cooking a lot of the food for the party ourselves, we spent much of Saturday morning and early afternoon trawling around several different supermarkets, searching for ingredients. The Husband was thrilled to be spending his day off touring the supermarkets of Pattaya, but I coaxed him into it by reminding him that he would have the Monday to relax as it was a public holiday for the King's birthday. After the morning's marathon shopping expedition, an afternoon of furious baking, cooking and preparing ensued. Mince pies, a chicken and pumpkin pie, feta, coriander and lime filo parcels, pigs in blankets (or dogs willies as a good, but possibly rather disturbed, friend likes to call them!), smoked salmon on triangles of bread, and lots of nibbles. It was quite a spread and we were both slightly exhausted before our friends even arrived, but a mug or two of mulled wine helped to pep us up and we were singing along to the Christmas music in no time! I even managed a full rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas, complete with accompanying dance moves. Yup, the mulled wine was definitely pretty lethal!

It was a great night but I was feeling a touch delicate the next day! As a result, we spent most of it lying in the sun by the pool, with just an hour of tennis at the end of the day - even that was quite painful! I certainly didn't play my best, which was slightly embarrassing as we've currently got some Russian tennis pros training at the club. They're rather good, as you can imagine, though they have the most awful tempers. We were playing a court away from a couple of them and one threw his racket at the back fence, swearing loudly in Russian, when he put a ball in the net. I guess they have to keep their aggression in check so much when they’re playing the circuit that they like to let all out when training. Which is lovely for us. The Husband has now decided that he’s determined to be able to hit the ball as hard as them (without it sailing over the fence and into the bushes!) and wants some lessons. I think it’s a bit late in the day for him to try to reach pro standard but it’s good that he has ambition I suppose!