A Christmas Confession
Something has been bugging me for years. I'm always reminded at Christmas time, and it always makes me feel guilty. They say that your past crimes come back to haunt you and I think I know what they mean. You see, I did something bad back in my student days. Come to think of it, I did several things that could be classified as bad back in my student days, but I'm only going to confess to the one misdemeanour here.
The incident in question happened in December, 1984; when I was 20 years old and sharing a college-owned flat with four other students in Beeston; whilst studying Physics at Nottingham University. Being students, we had three things in common:
1. An allergy to any form of cleaning - which meant our bathroom floor resembled a wig made for a client who liked their hair short and curly.
2. We couldn't cook - I'll get back to that one.
3. We never had any money to spend - as it all went on beer and kebabs.
Our combined lack of culinary expertise didn't hold us back once we realised it was cheaper if we cooked communally. During term time we took turns to cook shared meals each week. Meals that usually involved mince or belly pork; until we found a nipple on the rind of one particular slice - even students have their standards, albeit very low ones.
By the way, this isn't anything to do with my confession - that comes later - but I want to demonstrate the lengths we went to in order to avoid dipping into our beer fund.
One flatmate, James, fried up some mince and onions for spaghetti bolognese and was spotted adding mixed spice instead of mixed herbs.
"Isn't it the same thing?" he said when we pointed out his mistake.
I examined the jar. "It says here, mixed spice is ideal for mince pies and Christmas cake. I don't see spaggy bol on the list."
James sniffed the mixture and agreed it was a little aromatic. Rather than waste a good half a pound of mince per head, he threw in a whole pot of chilli powder, added some kidney beans, and turned it into chilli con carne. When it was served, nobody could taste the mixed spice - as we were too busy breathing heavily and drinking pints of water.
Another flatmate, Colin, served up a casserole, only for everyone to spit out bits of something hard and chewy. "What have you put in it?" we asked.
"Nothing that wasn't in the recipe," answered Colin. He extracted a small green square from his own mouth and said, "I think it's the bay leaf. Maybe I should have chopped it a little finer?"
We still ate the meal...it just took a while to chew.
My own personal triumph - and this still isn't the confession by the way, but it is linked - was when we decided to host a flat Christmas meal and invite girlfriends. Considering James was the only one with a real girlfriend in the wanting to kiss you sense, we amended the invite to "...and any friend who happens to be a girl". With ten mouths to feed we consulted the Christmas cookery book we'd borrowed from the university library. Yes, we did actually borrow it, not borrow it. Nothing to confess there. Good try though.
We discovered frozen turkeys were much cheaper than fresh ones but we were smart enough to spot the instruction in our cookbook which said, "When using a frozen turkey, ensure it is thoroughly defrosted before you start cooking." Being students with big appetites, we catered for one pound of meat per person and, using the handy guide in our recipe book, estimated that a ten pound bird would take a couple of days to defrost. Only we didn't realise it meant in the fridge. Not that our fridge would have taken a ten pound bird anyway.
As it was, with our flat heating included in the rent and therefore permanently set to high, the turkey defrosted overnight and by day two was becoming slightly wiffy. Our book hinted at a four hour cooking time which would mean a lot of coins in our electricity meter. Averse to any form of expenditure, James came up with the bright idea of using the kitchen in his girlfriend's hall of residence to part-cook the turkey, then finish it off back in the flat.
Hence, James and I arrived at Florence Nightingale Hall in his battered Ford Fiesta with the turkey, complete with tray and tin foil, in the only bag we could find that was big and strong enough to hold it - a green canvas tool bag. James and I took a handle each and nonchalantly entered the Hall, nodding at the porter as we passed, before catching the lift to the third floor where James' girlfriend, Susan, resided. Heading straight for the small kitchen at the end of her corridor, we loaded our bird into the oven, turned it on and went to Susan's room for coffee.
Three hours and several coffees later, we returned to collect our bird only to find someone had turned off the oven - presumably thinking it had been left on by mistake.
"Is it cooked?" asked James, peering through the oven window.
Opening the door, I took out our turkey. I didn't need to use oven gloves, which was a good job, as I hadn't brought any. "It is warm," I said, "but nowhere near cooked."
"What's that smell?" asked James. We both wrinkled our noses and looked at the turkey. Two days by a kitchen radiator followed by three hours in a tepid oven meant it was ripe to say the least. We had no choice but to put it back in our tool bag, say goodbye to Susan, and leave. In the lift on the way down, we were nearly gagging at the pungency of our bird in a confined space. The lift stopped one floor down, but the two girls about to enter were repelled by the stench from our tool bag.
"Urgh! You stink!" said one of the girls.
"Sorry," I replied. "Bit of a plumbing problem with the toilets upstairs." I glanced down at our tool bag and said, "It's fixed now." As the doors began to close I thought I'd got away with it, until James said, "Bye Lucy. Bye Jane."
Back at the flat, we had a whip round for the meter before stuffing the turkey in our oven and switching it to High. Four hours later, praying any bugs had been roasted as well as the meat, I proudly placed it on the dining table to the cheers of our guests. With relish I picked up my carving knife and cut deeply into the bird. A tiny jet of blood fountained into the air and everyone froze.
"You did take the giblets out didn't you," asked Kate, one of our friends.
"Of course I did," I replied indignantly. "They were in its bottom in a sealed bag."
"What's this then," she said, inserting her fork in the turkey and removing a lump of melted plastic containing a boiled and bloodied turkey neck. "You didn't check the other end did you?"
How was I to know large birds often had giblets at one end and the neck pieces in the other? We still ate it though. After all, we were students.
And so to my confession. Not only did we need food for our party meal, we'd decided a Christmas tree would make our party more festive. Only we were too tight to pay for one. Hence, the night before, under cover of darkness, five student lumberjacks crammed in James' Fiesta and went in search of a suitable fir tree.
Our first stop was at Wollaton Park - situated near the main campus and filled with contoured grassland, deer and hopefully trees. The gates were locked, so we climbed over the wall and relied on starlight to find our way - torchlight would have been better, but nobody thought to bring one. After stumbling around and finding only oak trees, we stopped when we heard a noise.
"Quick! Someone's coming," hissed my flatmate, Andy. With hearts pumping, we pegged it back to the wall and scrambled over. As we climbed back in our car, we heard the bellow of a stag from inside the park and realised we'd been frightened off by deer. Feeling a little sheepish, we abandoned the park idea and drove out into the country instead. Following a remote, twisty lane, our headlights picked out a tiny copse in a field next to a turning in the road. Access to the field was through a gate that opened onto the turning in the lane.
"This looks promising," said James. "If we can't find one here, I'm giving up. It's not worth wasting any more petrol." He parked the car in front of the gate and we all scrambled out and headed into the field. The copse had fir trees all right, but they were several years old and twenty foot high. We searched in vain for a six foot baby tree that would fit in our flat.
"B****r this for a lark," said James. He stomped back to the car only to return holding a saw.
"What are you going to do with that?" I asked.
"Get a us a Christmas tree," he replied. Before I understood his meaning, he grabbed onto one of the trees and began to climb. The fir swayed dangerously under his weight. A few seconds later there was the sound of sawing and a shout of, "Timber!" We scurried out of the way as the top part of the tree came crashing to the ground.
"Oh s**t," I said, but it was too late to be ethical and back then being green meant a dodgy curry after too many beers. Eager to leave the scene of our crime, we carried our swag back to the car where we used a tow rope to tie it to the roof. Without a roof rack we had to loop the rope through the open windows. Just as we finished, Andy shouted, "Car!" and the road was lit up by approaching headlights.
Like rabbits we froze, and someone said, "Act natural!" At which point, five furtive lads, out in the middle of nowhere with a huge Christmas tree crudely tied to the top of a battered Ford Fiesta, began whistling, checking the tyres on the car, and reading a road map hastily grabbed off the back window ledge. At the time, we were sure our acting abilities had worked, because the car didn't stop, if anything, it speeded up as it passed before disappearing down the lane. In hindsight, we made particularly unconvincing lost motorists and the car probably sped away to avoid the five bandits with a fir fetish.
We did get the tree home, although every passenger had to stick one arm out of a window to hold it in place - James always was a speed merchant. Back in our flat, it looked fabulous once decorated, and we had many positive comments from our guests, and yet...
...I still feel guilty that somewhere in Nottinghamshire, down a lonely country lane, is a stunted fir that is now the ugly duckling of the tree world - cut down in its prime to assuage the festive whims of five students. So there you have it, you have my full confession of a deed that has haunted me ever since. All I can hope for is that the great Christmas tree Creator in the sky will forgive my coppicing sins and deem the many donations to tree charities I have made over the years to be sufficient recompense.
And finally, I'll leave you with a lateral thinking puzzle that has been bugging one farmer for over twenty years:
In a small copse, there are twenty fir trees. Nineteen are fully grown, but one is missing six foot off its top. The ground is clear. What happened?
Now you know.
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