SALLY....PART 180. YOU MODERN THINGS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT FLAVOUR IS DO YOU ?

Last Sunday, for the first time in living memory my wife was too ill to make my sandwiches for market !

What a brave statement for a man to make these days eh ?

There are lots of reasons why she makes them but essentially it's because I never stop working plus the fact that the kitchen is her domain just as much as my room is mine !

With up to fifty food stalls to choose from at market I chose a '.......' one .

........? I would imagine any ......... in Newcastle would demand it was condemned and shut down !

What I got on top of a barely cooked flat round dough thing the size of a child's doll house tea plate and made of soggy paper were three small lumps of stringy meat plus a blob of gristle that made me retch.

On top of that was a bit of cut up raw cabbage and three scrapings of radish, listed as grated !

Nothing had flavour and retching on the gristle reminded me of how I retched on gristle the one and only time I stayed for school dinners when I was nine years old !

I could weep for you lot if you think that what I was served was a gastronomic experience worth getting up for !

You should taste and see what I get served at home by an admittedly reluctant Chef who presents me with Masterpieces even if whilst preparing and before serving it up she shouts out several times, "I fucking HATE cooking !"

SALLY...PART 179. I DIDN'T TAKE ANY SANDWICHES TO MARKET YESTERDAY !

I didn't take sandwiches to market yesterday because my wife was wrecked with coughing her guts up because of a particularly virulent bout of flu which hasn't hit me yet and I thought I'd let her go to bed early the night before and have a rest from slaving over me !

I'm a decent bloke for that I guess and anyway I don't do food as I make far too much mess which gets me into trouble for days after I've even touched a knife because she'll find a single crumb miles from the scene that she INSISTS will lure in millions of ants which will then eat ALL our food and build endless nests and eat our cupboards despite my reassuring her that they'd have to be termites to eat cupboards and that termites can't survive Northumberland temperatures !

I also fail to satisfactorily reseal the bread, put the butter back in the wrong area of the fridge after using FAR too much, use nearly every plate and piece of cutlery in the making of a cheese and cucumber sandwich, use too much salt and ignore the mountain of washing up that results from my best effort to show willing !

When she DOES make my sandwiches things go a bit like this......I'll still be working away quietly in my room at about 11pm having started at 7am when the door will be wrenched open with the strength of an outraged Rhino charging a Landrover, startling me and causing such a rush of adrenalin to course through my body that I nearly faint.....

"I suppose I'll have to make your sandwiches for tomorrow then as usual you lazy pig ?"

" If you wouldn't mind as I'm trying to get these hundred purses finished by midnight !"

"So what do you want on them ? I'm not a mind reader !"

"Cheese and cucumber please."

"Tomato?"

"Yes please."

"Or I could do you Tuna with or without pink sauce"

"No cheese and cucumber will be fine."

 "Or if I must I could do hard boiled eggs."

"No really cheese and cucumber with some salt will honestly be fine."

"You eat too much salt !"

"Just a little bit of salt then?"

"I've got some nearly out of date Wiltshire dry cure ham I could do with English mustard."

No really, really, just cheese and cucumber."

"But the ham needs eating!"

"RIGHT ! I'll have the ham then !"

"Well make up your mind !"

"I did, five minutes ago!"

"Pickled cucumbers with the ham ?"

"Yes please."

"Sliced lengthways or in rounds?"

"Sliced lengthways please."

"They could fall out!"

"Rounds then!"

"White or Brown?"

"Oh for fuck's sake, whichever you choose and I've just cut myself !"

"Don't you talk to me like that ! If your so-called invisible friends on Facebook could hear you they'd be disgusted ! You always blame me when you cut yourself !"

"That's because I can't concentrate on this trimming when you complicate something that could really have been so simple!"

"Well TOUGH and in fact you can make them yourself now you bully  and clear that blood up before you come up to bed because I'm not doing it !"

And that's why I didn't take any food with me yesterday because I was too busy getting my thumb sewn back on in A&E !


 
 

SALLY...Part 178. AT LAST !

I only had to scream down the phone one last time and they collapsed after eight months under the strain of my daily phone calls !

 My driving licence is BACK !

SALLY...Part 177. AND SO MY HORRIBLE ANUS COMES TO AN END !

It'll be a year next month since a funny turn made me stop driving for an hour and then saw me scuttling off to A&E where my blood pressure was seen to be sky high and I was sent home with the suggestion that I might like to ask for a Cardiology appointment to see whether there had been a deterioration in my non-sinister funny heart beat...called ventricular ectopics.

That appointment, scheduled for six weeks later saw the Consultant listen to my tale whereby she decided to carry out some tests and informed me that I shouldn't drive and must tell the DVLA !

So I surrendered my licence and when the tests proved nothing I got discharged from her clinic on October the 18th and it has taken since then to get my licence back !

The moral of the story is unless you want to lose your licence DON'T go to the Doctor until you are actually dying by which time it'll be too late !

Oh and I think the title should have been ANNUS HORIBILIS which is what the Queen had a few years ago !

SALLY...Part 176. IT'S NOT MY FAULT I ATE THE WRONG WRAP !

SEATON DELAVAL HALL ACROSS THE EARLY MORNING MISTY FIELDS !

As the sun finally came out I thought that it might just be possible to get Shirley and her bad knee to go for a gentle walk around Seaton Delaval Hall, our very local National Trust Property from which I am BANNED !

The bus would drop us right outside and I thought that if the pain was too bad then we could quickly get home !

She had actually admitted to feeling better having spent an hour or two yesterday bent from the waist pulling hundreds of dandelions out of our lawn and even managed a brave smile when she made us a picnic this morning !

SHE HATES GARDENING BUT LOVES GARDENS !

Dismounting our transport she thrust our Scottish National Trust membership cards into my hand for me to show them upon entry as she will have nothing to do with the lower classes who sit behind desks checking such things !

SO OLD IT HAS A PROP !

 We walked HER chosen route twice and once she'd decided that she felt strong enough for an additional FOUR MILE route march across fields, along a Dene and down a coastal road to a bench out of the wind we set out ! That is SHE set out and I followed, laden down with a rucksack containing her usual collection of anti-thigh-rub gels, spare shoes, tops, coats, boots, sun creams of various strengths, several litres of water and her spare visor in case the wind took the one she was wearing !

SOMEONE FORGOT TO SWITCH THE FOUNTAIN ON WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE THE SCENE PERFECT !

She ate her wrap, well half of it but how was I to know THAT whilst I took photos in the grounds and searched for a short-cut through the churchyard which she had instructed me to go and find but which wasn't open...so I failed in her eyes....like I do with most things I try to do to please her !

We tried another short cut across the side of the front lawn which I'd stupidly suggested but which ended in an impossible-to-cross HA HA !

Her eyes narrowed even further as she barked insults at my stupidity !

Sometime later I fell well behind as with bone crunching against bone she stormed off across the land !

Down in the dene I begged her to ease off and let me sit to eat as my legs felt hollow but NO, she sped up and disappeared into the far distance !

AH THE BLUEBELLS ARE BEST AT THIS TIME OF YEAR WHEN THEY'RE OUT !

So, faint with hunger I opened the sandwich box, saw two wraps and having received no instructions fell on the first one that came to hand and tore into it !

There were also two packets of posh Kettle crisps but as I knew I would be expected to eat the lesser 'Lightly Salted' ones, I left her much tastier 'Balsamic Vinegar' ones unopened and crunched through my alotted ounce and a quarter of nothingness !

When I eventually caught up with my now resting wife about an hour later she opened the box and demanded to know why I had eaten her other half of her cheese and cucumber wrap when I knew full well that she'd made me a Tuna one which she wouldn't have made for herself because she hates tuna !

My explanation of "I had no idea what was in a folded over wrap!" only managed to anger her more and she thanked me for being responsible for her having to starve as she HATED fish !

QUITE BEAUTIFUL REALLY DOWN HOLYWELL DENE !

So, I grabbed the offensive piece of dough and reluctantly shovelled it down my still hungry throat without  noticing that a great deal of Tuna juice had run out of the bottom of the wrap as it unrolled itself and dripped onto my jacket sleeve which now stank to add to the atmosphere as we 'discussed' my selfishness !

I HATE wraps ! What is the point of the foul, soggy, tasteless things anyway ?

So off she shot, bad tempered and starving for a further two mile silent route march to Seaton Sluice where she could finally rest ALL her bone on bone AND cracking joints on a proper bench !

IT'S NOT A BAD VIEW FROM THE BENCH WHERE WE SAT IN COMPANIONABLE ANGER !

We love our little walks !

HOME LAY TWO MILES THAT WAY BUT I HAD NO INTENTION OF WALKING ONE MORE STEP THOUGH SHIRLEY WOULD HAVE, CRACKING EVERYWHERE WITH EACH STEP AS BONE SPLINTERED AGAINST BONE, EXCEPT SADLY IN HER JAW, AS SHE URGED ME ON WITH HER USUAL STREAM OF INSULTS AGAINST MY MANLINESS !

MADAME ANGER AND CONSORT !