Tag Archives: salad

The Knell of Parting Day

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A knell is the sound of a bell rung solemnly. I checked it up before using it. What I don’t know is how you toll a bell solemnly. You just pull a rope don’t you. The solemnity is in the timing of the successive rings, I would have thought, not in the quality of a single ring. Anyway, that’s my thought on it.

Whilst looking at Gray’s Elegy and picking it over for a quote, I noticed that he composed it by reusing some lines for another poem he had tried to write. I’m glad to find it’s not just me that treats old and unsuccessful poems as raw material for new ones.

Where does all the time go? Twilight has arrived, the sky is holding just a hint of colour behind a veil of grey cloud and it is time to eat and change pace.

That’s probably what I miss most about Julia not being here, Well that and there seems to be more washing up to do. And no tea appears magically by my elbow as I write. However, without her there is definitely no change of pace. I get up. I do what I like. I watch what I like on TV. Nobody wakes me up to tell me to stop snoring. And then it’s time for bed.

She, meanwhile, has been to a baseball game and is currently at a Mother’s Day BBQ celebration hosted by the family of Number One Son’s partner.  They are spit roasting a whole pig. Canadian BBQs are very different to the ones we have in Nottingham.

I’m back from eating now. Quiche and salad, in case you were wondering. The same quiche and almost the same salad as I had yesterday. No, I haven’t developed a sudden love of salad, but we had it in the fridge and I hate wasting food. I am also pretty sure I would hate dying, so it’s probably time to start eating a healthier diet.

Tomorrow I will, I think, start with cereal and fruit. Lunch? It’s definitely time to get round to that mushroom soup. Evening meal is fish finger sandwiches. They are the ones that are marketed as containing Omega 3 and being good for you. This time next year it will be something else that is good for me, so I will just have to read the internet and try to keep up. I’m eating more sandwiches and fewer vegetables now that Julia isn’t here.

Up to 21

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I had salad for the second time in two days.  Didn’t like it, but it has to be done. I need to control my weight and I need the nutrients.

Had cereal for breakfast (bran flakes) with raspberries, banana and blueberries. I’m claiming four towards my 30. Lunch – remembered to add peppers to the salad, so added an extra one. Julia is currently dishing up roast pork with stuffing and apple sauce with roast potatoes, cauliflower, carrot and parsnips. That’s four more, as there’s sage in the stuffing. I ate a pear today too, so that’s ten new vegetable sources of nutrition. Apple sauce doesn’t count as it is processed, but I will have an apple for lunch tomorrow. Just remembered we had grapes with the salad, though I did forget the nuts again. Eleven.

Add this to yesterday and we are now on 21.

Vegetables – Carsington Water

Having looked into what people recommend for the “five a day” I am quite alarmed by some of the things I read. I thought we were doing quite well but in world terms we are way behind.

Japan recommends up to 17 portions a day – 13 vegetable and four fruit. The portions are only 50g, compared to our 80g portions, but they still get 850g of veg to our 400g.

Austria recommends three portions of veg, two of fruit and four of rice, grains, potatoes, bread or pasta a day (five for children and active athletes). A portion of cooked vegetables in Austria is 2-300g. Five of our portions are only a little more than one Austrian portion, though you can eat less if they are raw.

Spanish portions are  up to 200g each – 3 veg and 2-3 fruit per day. Minimum is about 600g per day.

The problem is that I’m not sure I’m actually eating full portions for my five a day. The portion size is two inches of cucumber and three sticks of celery. Who eats that amount of cucumber or celery in a day? One stick of celery is plenty when I take it for lunch. And four or five thinnish slices of cucumber are plenty.

Healthy home grown veg

 

Holiday Day 1

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Today I started with a lie in and followed up with a relaxed breakfast featuring bacon croissants. I have become very cosmopolitan in my later years.

In the after noon I went to the shop because, in the course of the morning I suddenly realised I had left my battery charger plugged in at the shop. I’d noticed it bleep yesterday to tell me the batteries were charged but had forgotten to disconnect it. Fortunately, the automatic cut off had worked and all was OK. This isn’t always the case as they sometimes get painfully hot. This is a reminder of why I was worried about fire.

In the evening we had a large salad, plus some quiche and a sliver of cheesecake. The salad was rocket, tomato, cucumber, spring onions, mushrooms, peppers, dried apricots, almonds, feta and watermelon. It’s partly an attempt to eat more salad, and partly an attempt to clear up a lot of  part packets of stuff.

Tomorrow I will make soup as we have a number of mushrooms and carrots coming to the end of their shelf life. It will be Mushroom Soup and Carrot and Lentil Soup, I’m not going to try to make Carrot and Mushroom Soup.  That would be a step too far.

I’ve also been reading posts, though I’m still struggling with time. My apologies to everyone I have been neglecting.

Finally, we watched The Great British Sewing Bee. It’s a harmless way to pass an hour in the evening, despite the slewed comments of the judges. They definitely have favourites. In the judging it’s quite common for judges to criticise the non-favourites for faults that they then ignore when telling their favorites that their creation is superb, even though one or more obvious faults are jumping out of the TV screen.

Bumble bee on bramble flowers – Sherwood Forest

n most TV  competitions.

Day 218

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We had the first plums from the tree in the garden today. They are very good, but the crop is not going to be a big one this year.

We also had a Small White and several Large ones in the front garden today, so things are looking up for butterflies. I’m thinking about planting dwarf sunflowers in pots for next year. They will look cheerful and provide bird food. I just looked them up and they are a foodplant of the Painted Lady caterpillars.

We just had a letter from the people who supply our power infrastructure (who are different from the people who supply the electricity). I only found that out last year. They are collecting information on people who need extra help in case of power cuts or other problems. We qualify because i am near pension age, have mobility problems, chronic illness and will have medication in the fridge (the new injectable stuff has to be kept in the fridge).

This is a new steepening of the downward slope that leads to old age and damnation. It’s OK now, but ten years from now they will be using this list as a starting point for euthanasia. It stands to reason that if they can’t cut taxes the government will have to cut overheads. You don’t need to be an economist to work that one out. If you aren’t working you won’t be seen as necessary.

I used Julia’s Low carb cook book as inspiration for a large salad tonight. I didn’t need it for a salad recipe, just to persuade me that salad is a food. I am still not convinced . . .

Shopping and The Saint

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We’ve just been to pick up the shopping order from TESCO. There were a couple of things that weren’t available and one substitution.

This was bagged rocket (or arugula if you speak American). Yes, I shouldn’t be buying it, for a number of reasons, including expense and ecology, but I try to eat a variety of things and at least you can taste rocket. Well, not this week, because they substituted it fro lamb’s lettuce. They could have substituted organic rocket (though it may have made their price guarantee squeak a little), or watercress (another salad you can taste) or even the “peppery” salad, but no, they substituted it with the lamb’s lettuce. It will do, but it doesn’t look like the obvious substitution to me.

They don’t leave it to the discretion of the packers to do the substitution, they use an algorithm. Heaven help us if the robots ever take over – I cannot even begin to imagine what life will look like once we fall int6om the hands of the algorithm-wielding little metal menaces. That’s another good argument for not living to be a thousand.

The strange thing is that when I check rocket on the website, it is available, and lamb’s lettuce isn’t. Probably because they’ve been fobbing all the rocket customers off with lamb’s lettuce.

Easy answer is to give salad a miss until we can start growing our own again.

I watched The Saint at lunchtime. At the age of 8 I thought this was the best TV show ever made. Today, 55 years later, the tale of a mad scientists breeding giant ants in a Welsh cave system, though dated and not great literature, didn’t impress me quite so much. However, to be fair, it was far from the worst thing I’ve seen on TV recently.

The clock picture is to mark the occasion of me getting round to altering the clock in the car, after the clocks went back at the weekend. I kept meaning to do it but never got round to it. The story of my life.

 

Counting Some Blessings

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Number One, despite being treated like a child (the attitude of the nurses has grown more condescending as my hair has turned whiter),  I do have decent medical treatment available, and, having turned 60, I no longer have to pay for prescriptions.

Number Two, last Sunday lunch was not as bad as I had feared. I had been worried about the idea of hundreds of people everywhere, coughing and sneezing, but it was almost deserted and very enjoyable to get out. I might be able to re-engage with normal life if it stays like this, though I am actually happy being anti-social.

Number Three, I’ve been given a big bag of potatoes, beans and beetroot (I like potatoes and beans, and Julia likes beetroot) so we have been eating better for the last few days.

Number Four, after a temporary glitch, reminiscent of the empty shelves of the original lockdown panic buying, we now have slightly fuller shelves in the shops. And I can order food today and pick it up on Saturday (I could have had a slot tomorrow but decided Saturday was better).

Number Five, I have a couple of poems in Failed Haiku this month. I’m on page 107 if you want to have a look. Published twice in a week. I’m definitely beginning to feel smug. It won’t last, of course. That’s not false modesty, they have just taken on a new editor. I’ve submitted to her before – sent three, had three rejected.

That about wraps it up for today. It’s been quite a relaxing day and I have started a few changes to my diet and exercise regime, so things are moving. My next shopping trip (we are doing Click & Collect at the moment) features a lot more salad. I am unsettled by the thought, but needs must . . .

The photo is an old one, but it features salad, so is back on topic.

Nothing Much of Note

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I nearly fell asleep at work today. In fact, if I’m accurate I did fall asleep several times, but only for seconds at a time.  No window, no ventilation and nothing to keep my interest (I was entering long lists of dull coins onto eBay) and the result was easy to foresee. I kept jerking into wakefulness and not quite knowing where I was in the process. This is not what they pay me for, so I should do better.

The first part of my evening was spent asleep in a chair and the second part was spent making and eating salad. It’s time to get back to a sensible diet. I have an appointment in a month’s time and my weight is likely to come up in the discussion. I would liken it to the elephant in the room, but that would merely emphasise my tendency to excess poundage. perhaps I should begin dressing in grey.

Very little of note has happened. I have organised a day off so that I can take Julia to a training course (Mencap seems to think everyone has a car and can travel 20 miles across country by 9am). That has been the only thing of note.

I’ve been loking at houses in Country Life on-line. It’s not a good thing to do. I note several of them have cinema rooms. I have enough problems staying awake in an armchair in the light. Put me in a cinema chair in the dark and no good will come of it . . .

And back to Sunday

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We had a pleasant evening last night with Julia’s brother and his wife. I had a nice steak with chips, onion rings, mushroom, pepper sauce and followed it up with sticky toffee pudding and custard. It was a simple and not particularly healthy meal for a simple and not particularly healthy man.

Due to Julia’s brother’s understanding of discount systems, special offers and loyalty cards, it was half price. Substantial, flavoursome and discounted – what more could you want?

I noticed that due to the lockdown there was no salt, pepper or vinegar on the table. We ordered from paper menus which we were asked to throw in the bin on the way out.

I also had what was referred to as a complimentary salad. At least I assume that was how it was spelt. It didn’t say anything nice to me, so I suppose it was complimentary only in the sense of being (supposedly) free. As it was a steakhouse rather than a food bank, it wasn’t actually free, as they clearly charge for it somewhere along the line.

It certainly wasn’t complementary as it didn’t enhance the steak and chips.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t really a salad either, just a few bits of green leaf and veg in a small pot. I’m not sure where a salad ends and a garnish begins, but I have definitely seen garnishes that were bigger than this “salad”.

Despite this, it was an excellent meal in good company and I’m looking forward to a time when we can go out without having to worry about contracting a fatal infection.

It’s roast veg, pie and gravy tonight. The picture is a library picture so I can post before eating.

Damsons

The bottom picture is the damsons we picked – very nice harvest from a tree in a pot. Not sure if I mentioned them before.

 

Sunday Salad

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I’m showing off now – three posts, and the final one is about salad. Can’t generally stand the stuff, which is for girls, rabbits and Liberals, but now and again I do feel like a salad, particularly as I have been filling up on stodge this week, so it was time for a salad to give my stomach a break.

It wasn’t too bad.I started with rocket, then added slices of pear, a scatter of red peppers, home-grown red and yellow tomatoes, shop-bought coleslaw (I was feeling lazy), a fig, crumbled Stilton and some sweet potato pakora (also bought).

I always feel guilty about shop-bought coleslaw, but do I really want to be elbow deep in sliced cabbage and grated carrot or do I want to pass  over 85 pence?

I meant to add sliced mushrooms and balsamic vinegar but I forgot.

Looking at the picture, it seems that you can see a lot of plate through the salad, but I assure you, it was filling.

I had to face an unpalatable fact this afternoon, and I don’t mean the salad. I’m just not very good at writing fact-filled posts. I spent several hours researching a post and trying to write it and so far, have come up with six hundred works of seriously soporific pap. It’s fortunate I’m not in full alliteration mode…

Sometimes I get it right, but more often than not I end up droning on with increasing pomposity as I cull facts from Wikipedia.

I’m much better at lightweight pieces about salad, or talking about my plums.

Or making puerile plum puns with potentially perplexing polysemy.

(Apologies if polysemy isn’t quite the right word, but I needed something beginning with p, knew that poly was a promising start and Googled the rest. If I’m wrong I will have to endure the vilification of lexicographers, but I can’t see that being much of a problem).

 

A New Direction

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We watched a few episodes of Diagnosis Murder this morning and ate a substantial brunch. I’m beginning to get used to this relaxation, though I’m definitely going to have to curb my portion size.

I am going to be on bean salad tomorrow, and can only guess at the horrors that will open up as I start eating “sensibly”. That, in my experience, means eating things you don’t like because they are good for you. It’s good, because you eat less of it if you don’t like it. However, would you rather live to be 70 on a diet of chips, pies and chocolate, or would you prefer to live to 80 on bean salad and virtue?

Seventy is a bit close now, so I’m thinking of interlacing a certain amount of salad with the pie and chips.

Tonight it’s home made beef pie. Tomorrow it’s seafood spaghetti and the day after it’s fishcakes with rice and vegetables. Wednesday is sweet potato and chickpea curry.

I’m starting overnight oats for breakfast again and salads for lunch.

I’ll give it a week. I can mange the healthy evening meal, with the odd takeaway, and the overnight oats. But a week of lunchtime salads will be plenty. Man is not meant to function without cheese and pickle sandwiches and pork pies. But he’s not meant to function in shirts that strain at the front with the curve of a galleon in full sail.

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Overnight Oats with Fruit