Weeza's Freeza

Dave's comment on the last post reminds me of the time, about 40 years ago, when my sister attended a rather posh cookery school called W1nkf1eld Pl@ce. A girl's contact lens dropped in the cucumber soup that was being made for dinner. No amount of fishing around could find it, so each girl was instructed to suck the soup through her teeth. Her own teeth, that is - thank you, Gordie, for noting the ambiguity. There was no sign of the lens, however. This was in the days of hard lenses, of course.

I took my daughter (who has no car yet) down to the doctor's to register; she'd already made an appointment with the midwife for later in the day. Then we went food shopping and spend the rest of the day cooking (me) and putting things away and washing up (Weeza). I did lots of basic minced beef sauce, to be turned into Bolognese, chilli, whatever, coq au vin, a chicken casserole with peppers, onion and tomato, chicken, mushroom and sweetcorn soup and minestrone soup. Apart from some roast chicken which she can eat over the next day or two, it will all go into the freezer, to be hauled out in the next few weeks.

When we were at the surgery again waiting for her appointment, a cheerful doctor came out for her next patient. "Ooh, I can smell some lovely cooking going on! Where's that coming from?" "Er, that might be me. I've been cooking all afternoon." "Onions," she said, coming over to me and sniffing; "yes, it's you. It smells delicious." I didn't quite know where to put myself.

All is fine with Weeza and she still feels very well. I must say, the surgery is lovely. All the staff seem very cheerful and friendly, including the receptionist (!) and she's quite happy about everything.

Ro arrived home during the afternoon and went straight up for a hot bath. He had a good time. "How was Okkervil River?" I asked. "Really good," he assured me. "Have you come across Shearwater?" I enquired casually. "Oh yes, that's the singer from OR's band and someone else, isn't it? I've got one of their albums - Rook, it's called I think". "Can't catch you out on anything, can I?" Thanks, Mike, at least I asked a half-decent question for once. I'm immersing myself in Rook (as it were) and becoming increasingly hooked. A fabulous voice, although a couple of octaves higher than I had expected.

Another thing Ro has mentioned were the snacks. Not those he bought, but those passed around the camp fire. "The advantage of pitching your tent next to older people, you know, in their 30s and 40s." He met a number of friends his own age too, including one of the Bens he was at school with - there were 3 Bens he used to bring home, with the result that the Sage used to call all his friends Ben. One of the 'older people' gave him a lift each way - he had posted the offer of a lift on a car-sharing website.

The other culinary fact was that people kept offering him cups of tea. "What is it with making tea?" he wondered. "I mean, I like tea, but I wouldn't bother with lugging around a camp stove and a kettle and a bottle of gas, just so I wouldn't have to go without tea for 3 days." "Was that your friends?" I asked, wondering if he's quiz me on my imperfect grammar. "Oh no, old people," he said, obviously not meaning those as old as I.

He's got a birthday coming up this week. He's aging too.