On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me... three french hens... no wait. It's not Christmas. Saturday was an important feast however - michaelmas. The feast of St. Michael and all Angels. This Michaelmas we skipped the french hens and had instead a Chicken, a Duck, and a Goose.

It sounds like a joke, a Chicken, a Duck and a Goose walk in to a bar and the barman says... um... something about having a lot of birds in tonight?

It all began (as many a fine adventure in tradition has done so) with Joanna Bogles book A Book of Feasts and Seasons. The entry for Michaelmas prescribes the consumption of Roast Goose and something they apparently call Blackberries in the south - Brambles to us northern folk. A fine plan, let's buy a goose and have bramble crumble for desert. Mmmmm. So we set the date and invited friends and fambly to attend the approaching feast.

Ella went to P Imison, our local butchers, and ordered a goose (on the way to Bradford as it happens) and we cracked jokes along the lines of "our goose is booked". We were set.

But life, alas, is never simple. Hull City have a football match and Hull FC have a rugby match, all on Michaelmas day. Ella's Dad, Brother and Grandad all have tickets and so they cannot go. No matter, let's have the meal on the sunday... alas... Michelle has a youth mass to attend. What to do? What to do? How about both?

...and so it was, at the last minute, that Michelle went shopping for a second Goose. You can't buy gooses, ahem, I mean geese so Michelle went for a Duck instead - Duck is surely practically the same, I expect they both taste of small pieces of pond soaked bread anyway.

We collected the Goose from P Imison's where the man cleverly remembered our name (not Price... not Priest...) and gave us instructions for cooking it. The, when the time came, we headed over to Fr Massie's.

Fr Massie's? Why yes. Fr Massie has a way bigger house than ours and plates enough for any number of people, which he generously allowed us to use. I've heard any number of stories of frumpy prelates who resent laypeople entering their nice rooms. None of that here, Fr Massie allowed us to use his kitchen, dining room, plates, chairs.. everything really. A very kind thing to do, I'm not sure how I would feel letting people loose in my house unsupervised but he did. Thankyou.

Roasting the duck went okay - we followed the instructions and it seemed to work. Alas, I never can get everything ready at the same time. The duck was ready but the potatoes were not. By the time everything was ready things were cold and then warmed up and then cold again... none of this does anything to enhance the flavour. We gathered around the table and, on Mrs Bogle's advice, we sang "We plough the fields and scatter..." which Fr. Massie said bought back memories of his methodist days.

On the table we had a Pineapple plant which Mr Bashing Secularism rather resented having in his face and we also had a small bowl of chillies. Cyene Chilli Peppers and Pineapple Plants are not usually associated with Michaelmas but the instructions were to have something we grew throughout the year.

Everyone politely didn't mention that the duck was cold and then we had a truly marvelous bramble and apple pie made by Michelle. Mmmmm.

Our Michaelmas tale doesn't end with only one day, however. For the next day it began again. In the morning at Mass, Fr Massie heroically introduced the Missa de Angelis - many have said such things cannot be done with regular run of the mill non-rad-trad congregations but it was and it worked. The Mass of the Angels, on the weekend of Michaelmass. Appropriate indeed.

Straight after mass it was off to the kitchen, this time to cook the goose. Geese are biiiiig and ours took five (!) hours in the oven. In the meantime I popped home and roasted a chicken while Ella went to the Opus Dei day of recollection for women. We rendezvoused at 'put the roast potatoes in' time and left Leona in Ryan Day's capable hands while we cooked.

Midway through cooking I took the goose out to check on it and, disaster, the pan it was in was full of liquid goosefat. I wasn't prepared for a heavy sloshing pan and I spilled about a pint of it all over the floor, the rest of it I poured in to a pint jug, and another two pint jug. Geese produce a lot of fat (which we used to roast the potatoes).

This meal suffered all the problems of the last, I can never get things ready at the same time. However, having learned my lesson yesterday I warmed all the serving dishes so that after we made assorted Family sing "We plough the fields and scatter" all was still (relatively) warm. Goose really is a heavenly meat and joins the ranks of the Berfs and the Lambses. If you haven't had goose I urge you to give it a go. Ella's mum was so impressed she is considering it for Christmas this year.

My mum brought a bramble crumble which was v nice but the custard was a bit stressful. We forgot ours but Fr Massie had some in his cupboard with a best before date of November 2005... I had to run to Beals to get some milk and then when I made the custard up... disaster! It was nothing like custard. Not yellow, not think, not gloopy. I asked my mum for help (I asked Ella but she was no use) any my mum said the custard was fine. Unconvinced I set it on the table. Nobody complained, so maybe mother knows best after all.

After the crumble we had coffee and then port with a variety of cheeses and crackers, around about this time Michelle and Jessica arrived after having been to the youth mass at St. Charles which by all accounts was a success. Eventually the time came to go our separate ways so we waved off the fambly and (with the help of the heroic michelle) we tidied the kitchen.

There was bound to be some kind of problem somewhere along the line and there was... silly James smashed a pot - just as Fr. Massie arrived home. Fortunately it wasn't the one his great grandfather hand crafted from his own kneebone at the battle of trafalgar (I made that up) else I would have been in trouble.

All in all we had a great (if highly stressful) weekend. Thanks to Joanna Bogle for suggesting the thing (via her book) in the first place! Thanks again to Fr. Massie for the use of his house, Thanks to everyone who came the first night for not mentioning that the food was cold and thanks to everyone who came the second night for being patient when everything took hours longer than expected.

I look forward to the next feast day, guardian angels, on 2nd October. We get angel cales (if we're lucky).