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Supply convoy arrives
I know that when most people say "I haven't got any money," it's more a phatic than a factual statement, but I have had to think carefully in the past forty-eight hours about how to get through Christmas with literally no money.
Eating of course, is fairly important. Yesterday was my children's birthday party (their actual birthdays are on Christmas Eve) and there was a pizza left over, so I had that, and Kirsty bought me a pint. For breakfast this morning, I found some old porridge on the shelves and had that with water and I pinched some of Csilla's honey to put in it. It was very tasty actually.
Lunch required digging further back into the arachnid depths of the cupboard, where I found some potatoes, "Best Before 22 Oct". After snapping off those eerie growths that look like a mole's claws, I thought I could boil them and chop them up with some chilli-stuffed olives, and some cherry tomatoes which I rescued from the compost bin (nothing wrong with them that a quick wash couldn't sort out).
The thing that was bothering me was having to make the nut roast for Christmas Day. I've dredged out some lentils, a couple of onions, some pine nuts, and a lemon, but that still meant having to find some cashews, peanuts and some tinned tomatoes. Normally I make it with a marbling of prunes soaked in armagnac, but such a costly enrichment has to be eschewed this year.
Then, Lo! A visitor from the East, or at least the sorting office, arrives, bearing not only the new edition of my favourite lad's mag, but also a letter from my mother, enclosing thirty pounds for the postage costs incurred by me and Kirsty because of a misdirected parcel incident.
Pommes de terre d'olives à piment aux tomates
You'd pay fifty quid for that in London. I'm off down town to buy some nuts. Happy Christmas everyone.
10 comments
oooh….yum….very innovative!! Just to give you the heads up if you’re ever down south, the cafe in Dorset was Hix Oyster & Fish House where it appears they eschew the flute in favour of the coupe, as they do in their Soho hostelry ……damn good though what ever it comes in! Good luck with your nuts….happy christmas!!
Here’t to a tolerable Christmas and a peaceful New Year, Looby. Preferably one with a bit more money and a nice warm woman to snuggle into.
All the best.
Actually, freshly boiled spuds with nothing but lashings of butter, salt and pepper would do me.
When did you go vegetarian?
I remember you writing about a black pudding breakfast in an earlier post.
Just a minute.
You call the London Review of Books as a Lad’s Mag"?
Do they show pictures of books peeking out of their dust covers?
Merry Vegetarian Christmas.
YAH: Thank you. I remember your post about it. I might take my own glass though. Don’t want to lose all that mousse!
ISBW: Thank you. It’ll be a great Christmas, children, Kirsty, tree, Madeira, cheese, etc. And Mary-Ann and I are constantly plotting a child-free snuggling into each-other.
TSB: Nothing wrong with spuds and butter and pepper, lovely cheapo dish. I’m not entirely veggie but I can’t cut up an actual bird, especially one that’s been raised and slaughtered for the purpose.
And you should read the Lonely Hearts column in the LRB - it’s hilarious.
Oh, merry Christmas, Looby; what excellent timing. The sight of that plateful is making me want breakfast but we’ve bugger-all in.
And hooray for a festive LRB too: they’ve yet to arrive down in Oxfordshire, where the postal service is renowned for being a bit poor. If it doesn’t get here in the next three hours I’ll have to spend all Christmas reading Gutenberg’s Holmes. Which is scarcely a hardship.
There’s a very good article on betrayal and intimacy by Adam Philips in the LRB when it arrives, apposite in these internet based confessional times of ours. Hope it arrives soon, or at least it’ll fill some of that blank spell between Christmas and New Year.
In any case, Merry Christmas wishes to your frosty corner of Oxfordshire to you and Ms G.
I bought several presents for my two sons. But I think the one they appreciated the most was a bag full of posh (reasonably healthy) supermarket goodies for each of them. I worry about what they eat still even though they’re adults. This was a good way of pleasing them and assuaging my fears at the same time
Thank you m’dear, and to you. Thanks for another year of unmissable reading.
P.S. The guest blog offer is open and will remain so indefinitely. X
And Nursey.. he he - a parent’s work is never done!
Success! Christmas was saved! We were to depart on 10am Saturday, and the post - for once - arrived before then, including my LRB.
That article was so predictably contrary to the season that it made me laugh out loud when I got to it. I’ve just spent two hours voraciously consuming the entire magazine in one of my in-laws’ three baths. Such opulence was never heard of before.
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