food – don't confuse the narrator

what the dickens

Yesterday I mentioned that there are things I read on the internet that bring me up short. But I don’t do all my reading on the internet and it would be unfair if I omitted to say that the same is true for things I read in books.

I’m not going to haggle over whether listening to audio books is actually “reading”; I’ll leave that discussion for another day. So, for the sake of the current discussion, I’ve recently been slipping between reading a Ruth Rendell during meal and coffee breaks and listening to a wonderful dramatic reading of Barnaby Rudge while I’m out and about. It’s the latter that has stopped me in my tracks and made me rewind on several occasions.
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needs and wants

All this talk of only shopping for essentials has got me thinking. After all, what is essential?

The shelves in the supermarket suggest that my needs are quite different from others. I don’t think I can remember the last time I ate dried pasta and I probably don’t open more than two tins in a month. But flour is essential for me to be able to follow my usual lifestyle, and so are milk, eggs and cheese.
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daffodils for breakfast

Daffodils in a pretty vase, a piping-hot cup of coffee, brown-shelled soft-boiled eggs, and buttered toast soldiers made from the best home-made bread stuffed full of seeds and nuts… Were I from a different generation, I would have had to stop to take a photo of breakfast this morning.

But that word picture only shows you what I want you to see.
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assorted fruit

Today I bought nectarines in the market. Five big, dark fruits that will need several days before they’re anywhere near ready for eating. Five fruits that cost me £2.50.

As I walked home, I was thinking that if they ripen properly, they will be well worth it, but if, like so much produce these days, they ripen unevenly, or rot before they are truly ripe, I won’t be very happy: after all, they cost ten shillings a piece, and that is a lot of money.

I’m not sure what triggered that reversion to old money, nor quite what path it was that my thoughts followed past the old-fashioned rambling rose draped over the wall to the fruit-filled memories of childhood.
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binge

Apparently Monday was Blue Monday – the most depressing day of the year, when the weather is lousy, the days are still too short and we are all despairing over having failed to keep our New Year resolutions.

I don’t make resolutions – which is probably the best way not to break them – but I do recognise that for me this last week has little to do with healthy eating, exercise, diets or other good habits that people tend to adopt at this time of year.
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