Fragile Monday

It's Monday morning and I'm suffering the effects of the Sunday afternoon before. No need to send floral tributes just yet. I'll survive. Perhaps.

Sunday afternoons with the Great Ursus and his Lovely has a lot to recommend. It was the excuse I needed to do a proper food shop, which I did at my favourite food emporium Waitrose. I did have some yogurt before I went, because it's important not to go shopping hungry. It didn't help. I did however, pick up a few bargains. I suspect that had I picked up less bargains, my Bank Manager wouldn't have minded so much.

I spoke to the Lovely Ursus in the morning and we decided that while the whole chicken I bought, was a good idea, a full roast dinner was not. The weather is definitely warm and bright and far more conducive to salads and their like. The Lovely Ursus said she'd bring the bread she'd started making (she's an outstandingly good woman), I said I would make desert. This is code for 'I'll buy something high in calories, sugar and cholesterol and low in nutritional value'.

The dearly departed Kaz and I shared a mutual loathing of kitchen equipment. We both commiserated with each other on the purchases of 'must have' kitchen gadgets that were used once and languished in the cupboard until being turfed out. Usually, because I moved house. I made an exception for the Lean, Green Fat Busting Grilling Machine (or some such), because it's a multi-purpose grill. It does a mean cheese toasty and grills salmon and slabs of haloumi to perfection. Then there are my adventures with coffee machines. In the past 5 years I've gone through about 6. The first 3, I had disasters with the glass jugs, which are quite a pain to replace. The last 3 suddenly died. I tried buying cheap ones and expensive ones and now have gone back to a small, one cup wonder (without coffee jug) which fills me with a cup of joy and motivation first thing in the morning. Caffetierre coffee doesn't taste the same, I don't know why.

We haven't had a toaster for over 5 years. There's been no need. In the flat, my stove had a grill which toasted to carbon perfection in a mere few seconds. When we moved, I was determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past: the smoothie maker, the whizzie soup pulveriser thing. So, our home has been toaster-free. I'm fussy about bread. I prefer to eat it the day of purchase, especially freshly-baked from the bakery down the road. Boy sometimes makes toasted cheese sandwiches, but like most teenagers, he ransacks the kitchen for food and couldn't tell me, even with a gun to his head, what he'd like to eat that week. We grow a lot of penicillin in this house.

Yesterday, I relented. I bought a toaster. It's all brushed steel and gleaming in it's newness. It's rather good. I realise this purchase was over-due when Boy's best friend announced he'd planned to buy me a toaster for my birthday. I suppose as ready-made food goes, toast is quite handy. Especially, if the bread is caught before the green/blue fuzzy stage. This toaster promises to toast bagels as well. I test drove it for lunch and it's quite good.

I put the chicken in the oven about half an hour before my guests arrived, thinking we'd be eating around 6 o'clock. That was until the Great Ursus and his Lovely turned up with warm bread. I'm a sucker for warm, home-made bread. We threw the munchies on the table: anchovies, humous, coleslaw, sun-dried tomatoes & feta, butter and tucked in. We demolished a bottle of wine and started on another. Boy and his Lovely came down and joined us. We chatted, laughed, listened to music and drank some more. When the chicken was finally done, I brought out the salad leaf, red onion, tomatoes and red peppers and round 2 of the repast commenced. Boy swapped his Lovely for his Best Friend and they hoovered up any remaining food. Which is just as well, there was still some chicken left, but not enough to very much with. Having teenagers, with their metabolisms set to hyper means food doesn't last. I still haven't got the hang of keeping food in the house with them. We tend to go from feast to famine very quickly.

As I sit here in my pink, fluffy dressing gown, there's not much of the morning left. I'm on my second cup of coffee and I'm not feeling the love for Monday. I have a list of things To Do, which includes going into the City to pick up a skirt and a pair of beige jeans, I ordered from Marks & Spencers; laundry and gardening. It ain't gonna happen Ladies and Gentlemen. If I get washed, it's going to be an achievement. I think I'm going to find a trashy book and languish in bed.

Picture courtesy of MJ