A partridge in a pear tree

The Dizzle had mock GCSEs starting today so I dropped him at school before hacking off to Gatwick for a meeting. Like most things NHS, very confusing. Came home at lunchtime and worked until 10pm, bar stopping to eat.

Have set myself a challenge to write twelve very short stories about a fictional couple called George and Stella, based on the twelve days of Christmas. Wish me luck, and in the meantime ... enjoy the balls.

Christmas 2010

For George it was a case of waste not want not. In America they called it road kill, but for him it was just fair game. It actually fell out of a tree and bounced off the bonnet of his ageing Mondeo; Stella thought it might have expired of old age but they hung it in the garage for five days anyway before cooking it on Christmas day.

"How can you tell if it's safe to eat" asked Stella. She was, like George, fifty something and eccentrically dressed hippy fashion although a decade too young to have actually been there in the 'sixties (nonetheless the local butcher had turned her appearance into a verb, describing her as "kaftanned", which George said sounded like a coffee shop with a sunbed in it).

"I'm sure it's alright" said George, with the zeal of an unconverted vegetarian who still majored on the humble chick pea but now enjoyed a bit of flesh to quicken his pulse. Come the day they searched for recipes on Google whilst Bokeh the cat watched doubtfully as the bird swung from the stainless steel utensil rack. Eventually they settled on braised partridge with pears poached in wine, which was surprisingly simple although the result was a little too rich for George's taste. Presentationally the dish was layered, game on fruit in ever decreasing portions so that it stacked like a small tree. They gave a portion of the meat to Bokeh, although not the pear. Cats don't eat fruit.

The dodgy stomach the next day had an air of inevitability about it. They wrapped blankets around their middles and watched 'It's a wonderful life' to try and cheer themselves up, with some success. "Infirmity" George said fatalistically "is somewhat inevitable once you get to our age". Bokeh was unaffected which caused them to conclude that the pears may have been the problem.

"A man doesn't get in a situation like this every day" said George, sighing on his way back from the lavatory for the umpteenth time, James Stewart frozen in his blu-ray universe. They finished the film and drank clear soup for their supper.

"Perhaps we should go back to being veggie again" said Stella. George shook his head.

"One bad experience can't put you off something for life" he said.

"That's not what you said about this coalition government" she reminded him. Nonetheless they agreed that next year it would be back to turkey from Morrisons rather than partridge that had dropped out of a tree. Apart from anything else, in no known idiom did partridges ever vote for Christmas, and coalition notwithstanding, George and Stella were great believers in democracy...