Hello, Faithful Followers! Lifestyle Support Guru here after a long absence. Have you missed me? Such wonderful news – today, I went out on a ‘social occasion’ and met up with not one, but two – yes, TWO –acquaintances! However, please keep it to yourselves that we were a ‘ménage à trois’ (so to speak), since we are only supposed to meet one other person, and in a public space, but we were in a garden, so not technically a ‘public’ space, but it was in the open air, so we felt that we were staying within the rules – more or less.
And what was the reason for this ‘social occasion’? An exchange of alcoholic beverages and literary works – in other words, swapping bottles of wine and books. I swapped a bottle of Sardinian white wine and a book about ‘cork dorks’ (wine nerds) for a bottle of Provençal rosé and a book written by an anti-fascist about his exile in a remote region of southern Italy. I think this says a lot about our differing literary tastes and intellectual capacities – I leave it up you to decide who is the ‘lightweight’.
We had a jolly chinwag as Bazza, the Friendly Geordie, (BFG), who has appeared in my stories before, and the LSG sat at the garden table, wrapped up warmly, while her paramour, BSG (Bazza’s Shy Geordie), sat just inside the kitchen door, so should the riot police come charging into the garden, they would find no one breaking any rules. We are a law-abiding lot, even though we compared speeding offences during our conversation!
(It was lucky that it wasn’t a warm spring day, otherwise I would have had to remove my jacket and thus shown that the (new) jumper I was wearing was in sore need of ironing, having not long been taken out of its wrapper, but that is now a secret I can take to my grave.)
Having swapped our various items, including a bottle of out-of-date beer, which happened to be lying around in the LSG’s kitchen, BFG suddenly asked – apropos of nothing – if I liked hummus! ‘Yes,’ I replied with great enthusiasm. ‘Oh good. Would you like to take some home with you?’ ‘Yes, please.’ I said, thinking that perhaps they had purchased too much on a recent shopping trip and were trying to fob the LSG off with some out-of-date hummus in exchange for the out-of-date beer, knowing that the LSG has the constitution of an ox and would laugh at the idea of wasting something simply because of its ‘use by’ date – this is someone who, only a week ago, safely consumed a packet of microwave rice that was seven years past its ‘best before’ date! (Yes, YEARS!)
But I digress – this hummus was not out of date, but homemade! HOMEMADE! Who knew there was such a thing! I thought Sainsbury’s and M&S had cornered the market in hummus! HOMEMADE! And so a tub packed to its brim with hummus – HOMEMADE! – was duly put into the LSG’s bag along with the rosé and the anti-fascist book – oh, and a book about an Italian detective.
But this was not the end of the surprises at this very convivial social occasion – oh no! BSG then said that, when cutting BFG’s hair in the garden yesterday, he had missed a few bits, so he thought he might get at them while she was outdoors, at which point BFG asked if I would like to stay and watch! I was overcome! Such a personal invitation! And I was told that I could take photos if I wished! There is no end to this couple’s generosity! And to prove how enjoyable this event was, I have attached a small number of photos from the Sweeney Todd Barber Shop (Mickleover branch). I turned down the offer of having my own locks trimmed – I was anxious to get home and taste the hummus – HOMEMADE! – but I am expecting a delivery of meat pies next week
Category: Happiness
Vegetables, Anyone?
Good evening, faithful followers and beloved believers. Tonight, a tale with a moral.
I had a most excellent lunch today with a couple of good friends, marred only by the lack of awareness of one of the party of how many vegetables should be taken from the dishes placed in the middle of the table. I shall refer to the friends as Mr and Mrs Marzipan, to spare their blushes (the name comes from the fact that are both members of a quiz team called ‘Marzipan’), although they aren’t married. Actually, they ARE married, just not to each other; but, before you sit in judgement on them, I hasten to add that they are happily married to other people who hadn’t come to the lunch – one was working and the other was trying on some lederhosen (but more of that later).
We were a jolly trio, chatting gaily about anything and everything. We ordered our food and continued chatting and, when the main course arrived, the plates were placed in front of us, with the vegetables in separate dishes in the middle (although the LSG had a salad – not for any reason of feeling virtuous but because I didn’t feel that French fries or potatoes and vegetables would go with risotto). I tucked into my risotto with gusto (a bit like pesto, but nicer) when, suddenly, Mrs Marzipan said to Mr Marzipan, ‘Do you especially like carrots?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, heaping the rest of the carrots onto his plate as well as dropping one or two on the table.
Mr M then realised there was a point to this question and looked up. ‘Ah,’ he said with dawning comprehension, looking at the vegetable dishes (now denuded of carrots) in the middle, ‘they’re meant to be between us, aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ replied Mrs M. ‘but that’s ok.’
‘No, no,’ he said anxiously, ‘have some of these off my plate – and there’s a couple that have fallen on the table. Will they do? And what about some extra broccoli? And you can have all the potatoes if you want!’ (I clung on to my risotto for dear life, I can tell you, in case he started on that as well!)
By this time Mrs M and I were in hysterics, wiping our eyes at the stricken look on Mr M’s face – even the stern-looking lady at a table across from us couldn’t help smiling as we squealed with laughter! What larks, what japes!
And the lederhosen? That was Mrs Marzipan’s husband, who waved to Mr Marzipan through the kitchen window when he came to collect Mrs M for lunch.
‘Why is your husband wearing lederhosen?’ asked Mr M as Mrs M got in the car.
‘Lederhosen?’
‘Yes, I could see the straps across his chest through the window.’
‘They weren’t lederhosen straps – that was the harness for his saxophone which he’d been practising before you arrived.’ When I heard this story, picturing Mrs M’s tall husband in lederhosen, it sent me into gales of laughter, once more bringing a smile to the stern-looking woman’s face! At least she left the restaurant happier than when she came in!
And the moral? Get stuck into the vegetables before anyone else does! Enjoy your weekend, whatever you may be wearing! (I couldn’t find a lederhosen emoji, so you’ll have to make do with a carrot, some broccoli and a laughing face!)
Domestic Bliss
A very good evening
from the Lifestyle Support Guru! As you know, I am an expert in the kitchen, especially when it comes to Pot Noodles or microwave meals – these are the talk of the town! Today, however, I decided to branch out a little and turn the oven on (this is known as a ‘blue moon oven’) so that I would be able to prepare a tasty, healthy and nutritious feast for the sickly DODO.
I had all the necessary ingredients to prepare oven-baked cod fillets and potato rösti. By ‘ingredients’, I mean, of course, that the items had instructions on their packaging. The rösti instructions were fine – put in the oven and turn once halfway through. In case I had misunderstood the instructions, I not only turned the rösti but did a little turn myself in a joyful, exuberant manner, skipping up and down the kitchen, singing ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ (mainly because my efforts hadn’t yet activated the smoke alarm).
It was the cod fillets that caused some consternation, however, since their instructions required
them to be ‘wrapped in lightly oiled foil, making a small parcel’. A parcel? A PARCEL? (screeched in my head in the manner of Lady Bracknell exclaiming ‘A handbag? A HANDBAG?’ in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’). For goodness’ sake, these are cod fillets, not birthday or Christmas presents. The only time anyone gets anything wrapped from me is when I order something through Amazon and it asks if it’s a gift.
I finally found the foil wrap (on top of the kitchen cupboard), brushed the dust off it, and ‘lightly oiled’ it – in other words, I liberally sprayed some of that ‘one cal’ cooking spray all over it – then lovingly wrapped the cod fillets in it as if they were delicate items of china and placed them gently on the baking tray alongside the rösti before I did my turn up and down the kitchen. (I am considering ‘I Will Survive’ for my next rendition.)
DODO ate everything and pronounced the fish tastier than the fish he’d had in a rather lovely French restaurant the week before! I did another turn up and down the kitchen, this time singing ‘Food, Glorious Food’. I am considering putting myself forward for the next season of ‘Masterchef’ – indeed, I may even aim for ‘Celebrity Masterchef’. ‘Reach for the Stars’, she sings joyfully,
(About ten minutes ago I asked DODO to look up the act who sang this and he dutifully did so, playing it out loud for me on his iPad to check he had the right song… we are now barred from the local.)
Nigella and SClub7, eat your hearts out!
Life Is Too Short
Joie de Vivre
In view of the number of ‘greats’ who seem to have gone a little too early to the Rock Hall of Fame in the sky in the last few weeks, I thought it might be helpful if I gave you, my beloved followers, a few reasons to make sure that you live your life to the full before shuffling off this mortal coil. In other words, LIFE IS TOO SHORT…
1. …to worry about wearing matching underwear (or, in the case of male devotees, [fake] Calvin Klein underpants) in case you are run over by a bus. The conversation in A&E is not going to be (one hopes): ‘Oh no! I cannot treat this person who doesn’t have the style to wear matching bra and knickers or (fake) Calvin Klein underpants! Take them away and dress them properly, please, and then I will attend to their life-threatening injuries.’
2. …not to watch cute kitten/puppy videos which make you feel all gooey inside – the only other living creature who can do this is Idris Elba (insert your own ‘gooey’ person if Idris isn’t your ‘goo’ of choice), and you’re more likely to meet a cute kitten/puppy than meet Idris (or other ‘gooey’ person), so make the most of your chances to get that melting feeling (not to be confused with that feeling of melting because you’ve eaten a Vindaloo).
3. …to worry about diets. I don’t believe that we have evolved as a species to eat lettuce and
cute bunny
carrots. If that were the case, we’d be rabbits and would probably feature in cute videos not featuring Idris Elba.
4. …to watch Eggheads. You are unlikely to meet a more self-satisfied, pompous and vainglorious (wonderful word!) group of people other than in Celebrity Big Brother or, maybe, the House of Commons.
5. …to count your alcohol units. This will become more and more irrelevant, anyway, as children will be required to use their fingers and toes instead of a calculator (latest government guidelines) and it’s virtually impossible to count using fingers and toes whilst holding a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc – believe me, I’ve tried, and have accidentally fallen over during the process, so imagine what it would be like for a mere mortal without my powers of control.
Sleep well – and let’s hope life isn’t TOO short and that you wake up tomorrow and read this!
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Happy
Happy lightness
A very good evening to all my followers! As winter draws (and drawers) ever nearer, I felt you might need some help and encouragement in seeing your way through these cold, dark nights. I have previously written about looking at the positive side of things, but I now have some further support to offer, having had some experience this week of looking on the bright side of life (hmm, that could be good title for a song…). Much of this advice is particularly pertinent to those of you who wear glasses or contact lenses – and for those of you who don’t, believe me – it will happen at some point!
sun glasses
You will need to visit your local, friendly optician for an eye test (free for those of us over a certain age) and casually drop into the conversation that you will be going to Africa in the near future so you wonder if you should get a pair of varifocals with light-reactive lenses, because it’s bound to be sunny and at the moment you only have a pair of boring, non-light-reactive bifocals (again, age will bring these delights for those of you who don’t need them just yet) which you wear as little as possible.
You think this might be a sensible (but expensive) idea in case you get some grit in your eye whilst on safari or lying on a sandy beach on Zanzibar (your local, friendly optician may start to look annoyed at this point) and have to remove your lenses and wear glasses instead. You explain that a few weeks ago you had to wear your glasses for longer than usual AND out in public (a rare occurrence) and it happened to be a sunny day (you may recall that day – August 17th, if my memory serves me well), so the only solution was to wear a pair of plain sunglasses on top of the ‘ordinary’ glasses. Now, while the Lifestyle Support Guru can get away with such a look, it is not something that ordinary mortals should cultivate because people will look at you in an odd fashion.
old shoe
Your local, friendly optician, realising that you have already spent a fortune on the forthcoming trip to Africa (threadbare clothes, shoes with no soles, that sort of thing), will suggest a much cheaper option of daily contact lenses to take with you (I think he was still trying to picture the LSG driving around wearing sunglasses on top of ordinary glasses), which you agree sounds much more acceptable – and probably less frightening for those one might meet on one’s travels!
Your local, friendly optician then asks if you have any other questions and you mention that you have seen a product which might relieve your ‘dry eye’ problem (which is a bit misleading because ‘dry eye’ actually makes your eyes water!), which is an eye mask that is heated in the microwave before placing it over the eyes for 5-10 minutes. He agrees that this might be helpful and this is where the ‘looking on the bright side’ comes in – instead of feeling sad that you are getting older and things are starting to fall apart, you can feel happy because you now have an excuse to go back to bed for 10 minutes because you need to lie down in a darkened room twice a day!
Lying down for 10 minutes
And the other experiences of looking on the positive side? An acquaintance offers earlier in the week to come round on Saturday morning to discuss possible plans for your garden (I use that term loosely), but you realise that you’d rather go and see ‘Spectre’ on Saturday, so you seek him out in the pub (where I meet most of my acquaintances) to offer your apologies and arrange another date. However, before you can say, ‘I’m really sorry, but something really urgent has come up tomorrow morning, so could we postpone the garden inspection?’, the acquaintance apologises profusely for not coming around THIS morning! ‘No problem!’ you reply sweetly, ‘We’ll rearrange it for another time. I can’t do tomorrow, though.’
And, finally, that ‘bright side’ moment when you realise you are up there with the ‘big players’. You have finally filled in your Tax Return (this is not a BIG Tax Return, believe me) after putting it off for months and you give details of the interest earned on your current account – a MASSIVE 13 pence! I think that’s probably more than Starbucks, Amazon and Google have paid put together, so I think George Osborne should be really grateful!
Always look on the bright side of life, dadah, dadadadadadah…
Enjoy your weekend, devoted acolytes!