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| FULLY BOOKED AND UNDERSTANDABLY SO ! THE CONVERTED SIGNAL BOX WE RENTED AND THE SETTING FOR A TERRIBLE BREAKFAST ! |
There's nothing like a hearty fry up to start the day properly and using just slightly less than a litre of Virgin Olive Oil I can rapidly produce a feast for four that leaves my guests drooling grease down their chins and begging for a top up of tea to help wash down their Oxford Thick Cut Marmalade on toast !
The secret is of course in the timing, so bringing a giant frying pan half full of oil to smoking hot I drop in par-boiled sliced potatoes to saute before adding the sausages, then the onions and then the mushrooms, allowing them to swim and sizzle for a while before moving them to one side to get the tomatoes and the bacon going !
Once done I spoon them into a sieve and let them drip for ten minutes before pouring the mountain of splendour onto a huge serving platter and sliding that into a hot oven before lowering several slices of bread into the pan to fry in the flavoured oil residue and frying two eggs per person without forgetting the eight slices of buttered toast and pots of tea and coffee !
Yesterday, before going out for a drive Shirley decided that SHE would cook us a breakfast, commenting that she would do it as she'd only brought a couple of thimblefuls of oil to both cook and prepare salads with and she couldn't imagine what sort of mess I'd create if I was let loose !
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| SHIRLEY ALWAYS MARKS HER EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL BOTTLES ! HERE YOU CAN SEE HOW MUCH SHE USED FOR TWO FRY-UPS AND THREE SALADS ! |
Shirley was as supple as a snake in our youth but now suffers from a collapsed pelvic girdle and pubic tendons or some such ailment which means that for the first three hours each day she can only stand for no more than three minutes without letting out great yelps of pain when she moves !
She also suffers from her condition for the remaining thirteen hours of her waking day which is apparently why she spends so much time sitting reading about Josh Groban on her laptop !
I felt really guilty sitting reading as she prepared breakfast, letting out grunts and gasps of pain !
"Sit down for goodness sake and let me do it !" I thought without actually saying it as saying it would have annoyed her !
Now, the 'induction' hob is a nightmare to operate and neither of us have mastered it so I was of no help whatsoever as Shirley failed to get the ring to maintain the required heat to actually fry an egg rather than eventually warm it to the consistency of a second world war lorry tyre !
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| TECHNOLOGY BEYOND THE LIMIT OF OUR COMBINED BRAINPOWER ! |
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| I CHALLENGE ANYONE TO MAKE SENSE OF THIS ! |
She managed to bake the sausages in no oil at all, even regularly emptying out the tasty oil which slowly leaked out of them, reducing them to a withered state resembling what I think my penis will look like ten years after I've died !
The baby tomatoes and sliced onions which supplied the only flavours were slightly heated in the oven and WERE chewable if you bit down really firmly !
I had just finished my morning mug of coffee which I'd let go cold before I'd started eating and daren't have another one before our outing as I knew Shirley tends to get slightly irritated whenever I have to pull into a layby for a pee !
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| OH WHY DID I NOT SAVE SOME COFFEE ? IT MIGHT HAVE HELPED ME SWALLOW THE UNSWALLOWABLE ! |
So I ate dry, if not very dry, sipping on a small glass of warmed through water to prevent the agony of 'an attack' when my diaphragm goes into spasm as I swallow the first mouthfuls of any meal Shirley cooks !
My thinly buttocked backside ached because I was sat squeezed tightly onto a hard, sharp-edged right-angled wooden chair unable to breathe or move and not daring to push the table away from me a little because 1. It would have screamed along the floor annoying Shirley, 2. With restricted width in the narrow kitchen Shirley wouldn't have been able to get into the fridge which would have annoyed her and 3. Doing anything annoys Shirley !
Without tomato sauce, which apparently I forgot to bring, the tasteless and altogether horrible meal took some bravery to chomp through though eventually I discovered that spreading unutterably unbuttery 'Utterly Butterly' on my barely toasted slabs of compressed white sawdust made it all just edible ! ( The bread was barely toasted because Shirley dreaded setting off the unreachable smoke alarm which was screwed to the ceiling ten feet up ! )
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| THE SMOKE ALARM THAT NEVER WENT OFF ! |
I thanked her for my meal which annoyed her and held the rucksack open as she piled in several dozen essential items like her spare shoes, spare spare shoes and her now wrecked silk scarf torn to blazes by the velcro tabs on her Goretex coat, bottle of frozen water which would gradually melt and soak everything else, anti-thigh rub gel, a single packet of crushed 'cheap' Asda crisps and her apple, a single boiled sweet each and my fun size chocolate bar !
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| I COULD HAVE EATEN A TASTY BREAST FROM ONE OF THESE FREE RANGE BEAUTIES RIGHT OUTSIDE MY FRONT DOOR ! |
Now TODAY with only a bowl of porridge for breakfast we walked a mile around a National Trust parkland soaked in stinking sheep's urine before wending our way to Pooley Bridge for a two and a half hour nightmare for me on a Lake Cruise which would see me green with seasickness however smooth the water ! (Fortunately the wind was too cold and we stayed on land !)
On the way we passed a magnificent Country Pub which offered 'Home Made Food' and I suggested stopping there for some lunch .
" Home Made Food !" she scoffed, " I would have thought that that was the last thing you wanted after yesterday's breakfast !"
And of course she was right ! Why would any man choose 'Home Made' when he'd spent a life eating indegestible meals cooked at home with resentment ?
ONLY JOKING ! Shirley IS a slightly reluctant chef but produces delicious meals all the same ! PHEW !
Well referring back to my 'suggesting' the pub, anyone who has read any of my blogs knows that it's a waste of breath for me to 'suggest' ANYTHING !
My 'suggestions' are invariably rejected as Shirley has long decided on a plan of action and today she had already chosen Granny Dowbekin's Cafe, described on Tripadvisor as superb !
We stood outside the place whilst I was read each item and 'advised' that I wouldn't eat any of them especially the MEAT AND POTATO PIE as it was bound to have gristle in it ! BUT we did go in and we ate MAGNIFICENTLY without ANY gristle at all and it was SO tasty with the best pastry I've ever eaten ! In fact I had a corner piece and the thick crust was like a cake and I ended up picking it up in my fingers to finish it off ! YUM YUM !
And their heavenly Bread And Butter Pudding was the finest I'd ever eaten as well, although Shirley looked less than impressed with what she called "A School Dinner and what I ate every Saturday when I worked at Woolworth's !" before falling thankfully silent and WOLFING down every last scrap !
The staff were really top class and friendly and I will add my opinion onto Tripadvisor too !
So well done Granny's, I can't wait to eat at your place again and I have not eaten a thing since lunch and you might have noticed that when I paid the bill Shirley peeped around my back and asked for a slice of Lemon Drizzle Cake to take home which now eight hours after the meal we have just eaten and was delicious too !
Finally, when I say 'WE' she parsimoniously and VERY reluctantly passed me three unbelievably tiny tip-of-a-teaspoon teasers !
