Tomorrow it is our fifth wedding anniversary. Five years already! The weather promises to be the same as it was five years ago i.e very hot and sunny, only tomorrow I shan't be swanning about in a big sod-off wedding dress with a twinkly tiara. Not that I wouldn't like to, you understand. I've still got my wedding dress. I can't bear to part with it. It is a reminder of the most magical day of my life, of a day I thought I would never have the privilege to own. People who came to our wedding still remark about what a fab day it was.
IT WAS GREAT!!!!
I am looking at the big group photo taken of everyone before we had our wedding feast. Set in rolling countryside, surrounded by trees, a mix of people ranging in age from their eighties down to a fit to burst pregnancy bump. There have been many changes since that picture was taken. Sadly, there have been two deaths, two people called to Heaven well before their time. There have also been 3 splits of long-term marriages and relationships.
However, there have been 10 babies born. 10!!!! 9 girls and 1 boy. Including a set of twins! The babies in the photo are now starting school, the little girls who swarmed around my son are now young teens. My son is to be a father.
There has also been a transgender re-alignment (I think that's what it is called although it does make it sound like something you find in a car engine). There have been more two weddings. And no doubt many, many more life changing happenings in the lives of our guests that we know little or nothing about.
And tomorrow, we are off to River Cottage, to have a meal chez Hugh F-W, our hero! At the allotment this morning I picked a massive sack of french and runner beans, most of which are shortly to find their way into our freezer as there is no way we are going to be able to eat them all in the next week. Well, not without the cry of 'Oh, no. Not beans AGAIN!' going up as we start turning green. I thought, I wonder if Hugh has enough beans. I could take him some, as an offering to his self-sufficiency greatness. And then I thought, no, he can grow his own bloomin' beans, because these beauties are going to provide us with a taste of summer through the winter.
Oh yes, and there is now officially a pumpkin as big as my head! In fact, there are 5 pumpkins as big as my head. I have no idea where the other 4 sprang from as they were the size of marbles last week. I have no idea what I am going to do with them. I feel they are part of the courgette revenge plot. I'm keeping up with the courgettes - but now the pumpkins and squashes are taking up the surplus crop baton. Luckily, Auntie Pollie and Mum both requested a pumpkin as they have pumpkin recipes they want to try out.
Mrs Poo is also looking perkier. This morning she made a bee-line for the raised bed and savaged a lettuce. And she bit me when I offered her some sunflower seeds. And then I caught her in the greenhouse eyeing up my cucumber plant which currently sports 7 cucumbers in various stages of length and girth.
'You can take your beady eye off those,' I said.
'What are they?' asked Poo.
'Cucumbers.'
'Oh I can't eat those,' she said. 'They repeat on me something chronic.'
And I have got Andy a cunning anniversary present, connected to the theme of wood. And I didn't have to resort to buying him a stick, either. I can't say what it is, in case Andy reads this and it spoils the surprise. But I was quite pleased with my lateral thinking and Andy had better brace himself for more than one suspect pun tomorrow!
Showing posts with label beans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beans. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Friday, 10 July 2009
Bad idea food
Who thought pitta breads were a good idea? Somebody who'd clearly never tried to fill one for their husband's lunch box, that's who. On the plus side they are flat, so easy to pack in a small space, but that's about as far as their virtues extend. Trying to cut them open without shredding the edges, then filling them with salad/tuna/ cheese/ whatever without shredding them further is nigh on impossible. I just about managed to get them into a sandwich bag but Lord knows what state they'll be in by the time Andy gets around to eating them at lunch time. I just hope he closes his eyes to the inevitable carnage.
Same as brandy snaps. Do you remember brandy snaps? They were very de rigeur at posh 1970's dinner parties. But try filling one without a piping bag and you might as well give up before you start for all the mess they cause. (Unlike profiteroles, of course). And I always think piping bags are more aggravation than they're worth, with their two modes of operation being zero-squirt-no-matter-how-hard-you-squeeze and explode-filling-all-over-the-place-except-where-you-actually-want-it-to-go.
And I am going to add those individual cheese 'single' slices to my list of bad idea food. Last week we had a barbecue and a request was made for some of these cheese things as a burger is apparently incomplete without one. Well, I've never brought them before, but I duly purchased a pack because I am agreeable like that. Andy was delighted. He used to live on these at one point in his student youth. I was just appalled at the whole concept. For a start, they don't actually contain cheese. Well, if you count 11% as a suitable percentage, then I suppose I must concede they have some kind of cheese content therein. But mostly they are additives and plastic. Wrapped individually in more plastic. I tried one, in the spirit of always trying something you've never tried before before you say you don't like it. It was horrid. It tasted like additives and plastic. No cheese detectable.
My next award goes to the new pots of baked beans you can get from a certain well-known baked bean company. They come in packs of 4. The packs are plastic like the pots you purchase yogurt in. They are very convenient for popping in a microwave for a quick and easy snack. What, quicker than, say, pulling a ring pull off a tin of beans, putting them in a pan and heating them on a hob? Nope...I just don't get it.
And finally, I am sad to say, my last award for bad idea food goes to the Happy Egg Company. I like The Happy Egg Company. They are dedicated to free-range hens for egg production and they also have a very entertaining web site with chickens on motorbikes and stuff. However, I am sad to report they have started selling packets of two hard-boiled eggs for 89 pence, ready peeled for an instant snack. They're reasoning is that these days lots of people don't know how to hard-boil an egg or don't have the time hard-boil an egg themselves.
It was with great sadness I greeted this news. It brought to mind a poem I learned at primary school some 25 years ago which I still remember now. It is called 'Leisure'.
What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Same as brandy snaps. Do you remember brandy snaps? They were very de rigeur at posh 1970's dinner parties. But try filling one without a piping bag and you might as well give up before you start for all the mess they cause. (Unlike profiteroles, of course). And I always think piping bags are more aggravation than they're worth, with their two modes of operation being zero-squirt-no-matter-how-hard-you-squeeze and explode-filling-all-over-the-place-except-where-you-actually-want-it-to-go.
And I am going to add those individual cheese 'single' slices to my list of bad idea food. Last week we had a barbecue and a request was made for some of these cheese things as a burger is apparently incomplete without one. Well, I've never brought them before, but I duly purchased a pack because I am agreeable like that. Andy was delighted. He used to live on these at one point in his student youth. I was just appalled at the whole concept. For a start, they don't actually contain cheese. Well, if you count 11% as a suitable percentage, then I suppose I must concede they have some kind of cheese content therein. But mostly they are additives and plastic. Wrapped individually in more plastic. I tried one, in the spirit of always trying something you've never tried before before you say you don't like it. It was horrid. It tasted like additives and plastic. No cheese detectable.
My next award goes to the new pots of baked beans you can get from a certain well-known baked bean company. They come in packs of 4. The packs are plastic like the pots you purchase yogurt in. They are very convenient for popping in a microwave for a quick and easy snack. What, quicker than, say, pulling a ring pull off a tin of beans, putting them in a pan and heating them on a hob? Nope...I just don't get it.
And finally, I am sad to say, my last award for bad idea food goes to the Happy Egg Company. I like The Happy Egg Company. They are dedicated to free-range hens for egg production and they also have a very entertaining web site with chickens on motorbikes and stuff. However, I am sad to report they have started selling packets of two hard-boiled eggs for 89 pence, ready peeled for an instant snack. They're reasoning is that these days lots of people don't know how to hard-boil an egg or don't have the time hard-boil an egg themselves.
It was with great sadness I greeted this news. It brought to mind a poem I learned at primary school some 25 years ago which I still remember now. It is called 'Leisure'.
What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
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