Had to go to the supermarket this morning. I avoid them if possible and try to support my local shops, but it is not always doable due to crap things like work getting in the way (my local fishmonger, for example, opens 9am till 4.30pm, which really doesn’t work for me except on Saturdays) and it’s a sad fact of life that we all need to buy things like cleaning products and cat litter. So, I really felt aggrieved that I had to spend some of my very precious annual leave entitlement in a place of such avarice.
It was deeply sad to see the items that had seemed so desirable ten days ago reduced to a crumpled jumble of cardboard plastered with “Bargain” stickers – can anybody really face a Double Chocolate & Cranberry Fudge Mini Bite even if it does have 30% off?
The really depressing things are “Sale” posters. Personally I love red and white, and not just at Christmas – it can also be a romantic colour scheme, have a very fresh Scandinavian feel and a vintage 50s look. Oh, and I think some footie teams wear red and white. However, red and white does seem to have a particularly festive look, and I use it extensively. All of these things are wonderful, evocative and exciting things to signify. And then our big friendly retailers go and use red and white for their bloody Sale signs. Can anybody really get excited or feel sentimental about a 6 by 10 foot dangling, rotating piece of cardboard. What’s even more depressing is that I realise that people do get excited by ‘em.
Came home with a boot full of fabric conditioner, loo rolls and yoghurt and had to have a bacon butty to cheer myself up. Jamie Oliver reckons that you should use slices cut lengthwise from a bloomer and chuck it in with the hot bacon fat. Personally, I want to live to see 50, so I used a hefty piece of the thin, snappy baguette that the French call a ficelle, with a couple of bits of organic smoked bacon (all fat removed, naturally).
I was going to finish off my morning by scrubbing the bathrooms, but Ade is surfing and will return home with his whiffy wetsuit and surf boots which he will shower off in the bathrooms leaving an attractive coating of Cayton Bays finest all over the place. Think I will settle myself on the sofa with a cuppa Christmas Tea and a fat wedge of Christmas cake. I always think I am not that bothered about Christmas cake but if I don’t make one I feel really hard done to. Was thinking of making a lighter version for Ade’s 40th birthday in February. By that time everyone has got over being the worlds biggest dullard, banging on about their endless diets and slimming shakes and everyone wants a bit of indulgence. Winter is a perfect time for dark, buttery, boozy bit of cake, thick with fruit and lifted with citrus juice. As long as they don’t think it was 60% off in the sale.
