Un Lamaca della Lampones

I'm not sure the above sentence is grammatically correct but the two nouns are and this morning I found one in a bag of the other and practising my Italian on it makes the experience seem less yukky.

I love frozen raspberries. I get through many frozen raspberries in a week. Frozen raspberries are my subsitute biscuits. And I'm just waiting for the Daily Rant to publish a story warning of the many dangers and deadly diseases that can be had through excess consumption of frozen raspberries. But even if that story does appear it won't stop me eating them. I love them too much.

Anyway, that love almost came to an abrupt halt this morning when I was putting together my breakfast. One kiwi fruit, sliced, one dollop of rhubarb yogurt, one teaspoon of ground cinnamon and then, la piece de resistance, a handful (maybe slightly more, maybe a handful the size of King Kong) of frozen raspberries. And as I tipped the raspberries from the packet something un-raspberrish tipped out with them.

At first I thought it was a cat toe nail. We get a lot of those around the house, having three cats who do a lot of furniture stropping between them. Then I thought, 'How would a cat toe nail get into a bag of frozen raspberries?'

I picked the 'thing' from the bowl, and examined it closely. It was quite small, about half an inch long. Tapered at either end, a bit fatter in the middle. It looked strangely familiar. 'I'm sure I've seen one of these before,' I thought. 'But where? Why is this shape and colour so familiar?'

And then I realised. A flashback to the middle of Spring last year, to the allotment, to a morning spent weeding around the edge of the polytunnel, where the ground was moist, the air was warm, the conditions were perfect for the development of baby...

....SLUGS!!!!

OH YUKK! Yes, on very close inspection, the 'thing' that had plopped onto my bowl of breakfast fruit was a frozen solid baby slug whose last memory had probably been, 'Oooh, I love a wander in the undergrowth of a field of raspberry canes, when the fruit is at its most lush and delicious. What's that noise? Sounds like a harvester with a freezer unit attac....'

You know that sometimes you have those moments when your body tells you to do one thing and your brain tells you to do another? And usually the brain and the body are at odds with the correct cause of action. Well, that is exactly what happened next.

'Eat the breakfast,' said the body. 'You were brought up not to waste food. '
'But there was a slug on it,' said the brain. 'A slimey, yukky, ikky sluggy slug.'
'It was frozen,' said the body. 'No slime involved.'
'It might have had a massive slime-fest in its death throw,' said the brain. 'That whole bag of raspberries could have been smothered in slug slime.'
'Well, she's been eating them all week. They haven't done any damage...' said the body.
'....yet,' finished the brain.
'Just eat the food. Don't think about it,' said the body.
'Hardly a vegetarian course of action,' said the brain.
'I didn't say 'Pop the slug back on as an exotic garnish', did I?' said the body.

And whilst this was going on, I popped the frozen slug in the food recycle bin.

And then, because it usually does, the body won the argument and I ate my breakfast, and it's only now, thinking about it, that it's making me feel slightly nauseous.

I did toy with the idea of taking a photo of the offending slug then storming Sainsbugs and claiming a refund on my contaminated bag of raspberries.

But they probably would have said, 'We're called 'Sainsbugs' aren't we? What else do you expect?? Watch out for the woodlouse in your peas.'

So I didn't.

I like kiwi fruit and yogurt and cinnamon and raspberries. I don't like slugs. The slug had been, albeit briefly, balanced on my breakfast.