Bloggers' Retreat

Stories from the near side - as seen by our Bloggers

Cat Meat for Sale!

Strange happenings in the Sullivan household this week, the sound of an old wrecked diesel van pulling up outside the house, heralded a loud knock at the door, my wife answered the door to the strange sight, standing on the doorstep was fifty year old woman dressed in a very low cut red blouse, a micro skirt, with bare but very hairy legs.

It is the woman who delivers the cats meat, and as it says on her very old van “ food for discriminating cats”.

She makes straight for me, she throws her arms around me and gives me a rib crushing hug, at the same time she kisses me passionately on the lips, I look at my wife, she is glaring at me very darkly indeed.

The odd thing is that our poor cat has been dead for the past twelve years, but still this woman has been calling on us once a week, she asks the same question, “what would you like this week?” She stares at me with her slightly bloodshot eyes and her deep throated trembling voice, Bella answers her straight away,” we do not want anything, the cat has been dead for years” she ignores Bella and says to me “ what can I tickle your fancy with this week”

This strange vision is stood staring at me, her mouth pouting, her red eyes slightly watering, her thin smile lighting up her slightly wrinkled face, the whole scene is spoiled by the rather unsightly varicose veins which stretches from her ankle to her upper thigh, these veins have the unfortunate habit of throbbing in moments of sexual tension, this combined with the hairy legs gives on a slight uneasy feeling.

The poor woman has been calling on us every week for what seems forever, she completely ignores Bella’s stern voice about the our cats demise, and my wife’s please about stopping her regular visits.

Incidentally I do believe that the poor woman is stalking me, the last time we went to Asda, I spotted her in the cooked meat department aisle starring at me with that glazed look that she normally has for me, and when we visited the shop that specialises in naughty underwear and things for the weekend, I spotted her on the other side of the street hid in the doorway of Boots the chemist.

Bella and I have talked about this problem, should we get another cat? Should we inform the police? Should we talk to the cats meat lady and tell her that there is no hope for her? Perhaps we could try to try to let her down gently or even warn her that we will have to eventually tell the police about her visits.

The odd thing is that with a little bit of surgery on her varicose veins, and a purchase of a good brand of superfluous hair remover, she would be a good catch for any man, unfortunately little can be done for her bloodshot eyes, but a good set of sunglasses might help.

To tell you the truth I have always fancied a stalker, but I have always thought that it would be someone a bit younger and preferably someone with less vein and superfluous hair trouble, but beggars can't be choosers!

Memories of happy childhood days

Bella and I often talk about our childhood memories, we cant remember what we had for our tea the day before but our long term memories are crystal sharp.

For instance my family consisted of my mother and father, four brothers and two sisters, I had a wonderful childhood, were very poor but I never remember being hungry, I also never recall being told off or being smacked.

The old saying about spare the rod and spoil the child did not seem to work in our family. None of my brothers or sisters ever got into serious trouble, we all turned later in to responsible parents and partners, very happy and easy going.

I discovered very early in my life, that you could do anything you liked in my family as long as you where employed, it seemed to be that you could carry out a murder but as long as you had a regular job, you where deemed to be “OK”.

My mother and father must have had the patience of Job, we were very high spirited as children, we must have ran them ragged, we fought each other we argued and shouted, but I do not remember my parents ever shouting or raising a hand to us.

One of my memories as a child was me and my brothers while walking around a local cricket club ground found a paper carrier bag full of rifle bullets, we took them home lit a fire in the back garden, put half the bullets into the fire and hid behind a bush while all the bullets exploding and whistling all around us. The neighbours sent for the police who took the rest of the bullets of us.

Now I remember the police telling us off, I remember them taking the rest of the bullets off of us, but I still don’t recall being told off my either by my Mother or my Father.

I realised one day that we where very poor, I think I was about ten or eleven, we used to use a service called “Bag wash”, This was a laundry scheme whereby we sent a weeks laundry in a bag, they washed it in the bag and sent it back to us, it would come back to us in the bag still semi wet, it was a lovely service, it saved my mother a full day of back breaking work, scrubbing a wringing. Unfortunately the laundry lost our bag one week, this was quite catastrophic, we discovered that we only had two sets of clothes, one we where wearing and one in the laundry, this meant that for the next couple weeks we had no changes of clothes at all.

My parents had no spare money to by us new clothes, we had to either to go around smelly or to sit around naked while our mother washed our one set of clothing, happy days.

Another memory was bonfire nights, I was about eleven or twelve, we where allowed to do anything we liked to do with fireworks, our two young brother in laws, my three brothers and I were like front line soldiers, we rigged up a piece of pipe, stuck it in the ground and proceeded to use it like a cannon, we stuck lit bangers in the tube and followed this with ball bearings, we pointed this at anything that moved and tried to bombard it with missiles. My parents were in the house all the time, but still no telling off, in fact all my Father said we he did eventually saw what we were up to was to tell us not to trample on his vegetable patch.

The odd thing is that I would not let my own children touch fireworks, without me being present at all times.

Happy days!

Beware of Mike with 'Mad Cow Disease'

There have been some terrible accusations in the Sullivan household this week, Bella seems to think that I am a hypochondriac, she said that the final straw was my insistence that I was stricken by Mad cow disease.

Consider the following symptoms.

1/ Bouts of random mooing.

2/ Semi mad episodes.

3/ Extra nipple growth

4/ My insistence of laying down when it rains.

My visit to the doctor was a complete waste of time, looking over his glasses he said “ get out of this bloody surgery before I call for the police”.

Unfortunately he has been keeping a list of my worst utterances.

He said that for instance, “ people who have had their Appendices removed cannot have acute appendicitis”.

And most certainly you would not contract Rabies after being sniffed by an over friendly dog.

It would be very hard to catch Tuberculosis by passing a Badger in a field from the safety of a moving car.

He was also very sorry that I had a face like a pig, and that I also overeat and feel that I am beginning to think that I am growing a curly tail. He assures me that I have not got “Swine flue”.

The trouble is that I catch these diseases very easily, for instance I certainly caught “ Bird flue” it was my insistence that I got up early each morning and began to whistle and I definatly found a bird feather in my bed, I also started to build a nest!

After studying my Webster’s world wide diseases I discovered that I had a very a very nasty disease, but when I went to the doctor and insisted that I had a “Prolapsed Womb”, I knew I had stunned him when he went very quite and red faced .

My growing fear that I had “farmers lung” was brought on when after meeting a friendly farmer one day, he had a bout of coughing and sneezing in my presence, it was only my wife had the good common sense to say to me “ pull your self together you bloody idiot” saved a hurried visit to the doctor.

I am afraid that I will have to draw a veil over my insistence of the following diseases that my poor body has been subject to. The worst of these had been after a fly landed on my arm, I suddenly developed Tsetse fly syndrome, that terrible West African plague, the symptoms manifested themselves by constant bouts of sleepiness, lethargy and my skin colour changing to a shade of dark brown with decidedly thick curly hair.

The list seems endless, “Malaria” I discovered this when I woke up one morning with a terrible headache, profuse sweating, uncontrollable shaking and a terrible thirst, my wife said that it could have been the terrible amount of booze I had consumed the night before.

I think that the worse one of all was the morning I woke up, got dressed , went down for my breakfast and felt a severe pain in my Gonads, it seemed that every time I stood up I experienced blinding pain in my private parts, was this some terrible disease of my testicles, was this the beginning of the end, was this punishment for all my misdeeds throughout my life, or was it the fact that in my hurry to get dressed I had hooked one side of my braces around my testicles?

August: A perfect day at home

Another fine August day, damp, cold and windy. We arose from bed early,, me in my very fetching black extra heavy black denim pyjamas, complete with fur lined night cap and grey bed socks.

My wife dressed in her finest French lingerie, thick dark brown flannelette from her neck to ankles, a sort of brown/puce cloche skull cap, with a deaths head motif printed in a dull grey on the front.

The sight of her filled the air with a sexual tension, I reached forward for my walking stick, unfortunately as I walked to my wife’s side of the bed I tripped over the pot that is usually kept under the bed, the contents of the pot splashed all over the room, my wife’s cry of “you bloody fool” added to my overly anxious sexual state as I tripped over my own socks, and fell full length on to the damp carpet, the smell of old urine made my mind race.

The sound of muffled laughter and the cry of “ for gods sake pull your self together” and “go down and make the breakfast”, I could tell from her shrill tone that I was still in with a chance.

I hurried down to the kitchen, my mind was racing, that could be the answer, breakfast in bed, egg, bacon and fried bread, would this bring the romance back in my marriage, perhaps a slice or two of black sausage and a toast and marmalade, I ripped of my pyjama bottoms in readiness, unfortunately I dropped a slice of toast on the floor and bending down to pick it up, the cat seeing my appendages exposed to the air decided at that very moment to playfully dig both his claws into them.

The pain was indescribable, with the dropped toast in one hand and the marmalade in the other I tried to kick the cat from my body, seeing my boot coming toward him made him dig his claws in even harder, it was like a scene from hell, the cat was screaming with fear and I was yelling with pain.

I tried to spin round in order to dislodge the cat, unfortunately I only managed to knock over the frying pan, the contents fell to the floor, the cat eventually released his grip on my now badly lacerated soft bits, my final spin made me tread on the oily mess on the floor, causing me to bang my head into the kitchen cupboard giving me a black eye .

The wife hearing the noise from the kitchen came down to investigate, the scene that greeted her was a semi naked husband with badly lacerated genitals, a black eye and still screaming with the pain, the cat stood cowering in the corner of the room his eyes blazing with fury over the kicking incident, the floor covered in grease, eggs, bacon and bits of black pudding.

I sensed that my chances of love making where sadly slipping away, “ clear this bloody mess up” shouted my wife as she slammed the door, I picked up the frying pan from the floor and just caught the rear end of the cat as he disappeared through the cat flap, I felt a bit better as he cried out in pain.

I looked in the medicine box for the antiseptic cream for my badly scratched parts, as , rested my swollen gonads on the kitchen table and gently massaged the cream into them, I looked out in the garden, looking at me where the three children from next door, the last thing they saw was the screaming cat emerge from the cat flap and the semi mad neighbour exposing himself on the kitchen table.

The end of a perfect August day.

Cricket for a few lucky ones

At last the cricket season is upon us, the season is on for summer fruitfulness, water shortages, MP's expenses scandals, speakers departures, and in fact all the usual delights of the early summer, even the weather has taken on its mighty yearly delight of rain and cold winds, why is it that weeds and grass grow in this weather but my plants will not grow at all.

I was watching the West Indian cricket team playing at Durham the other day, they looked as if they where frozen, they had their hands thrust deep in their pockets, they looked as if they took their hand out of their pockets they risked frost bite, the people watching them were dressed in overcoats, scarves and thick gloves, they looked more like spectators at an ice hockey match.

What is all this fuss about Susan Boyle, the singer from Britain’s Got Talent, it has also got hold of me, I keep getting on to You Tube to check her out, she is in fact a better singer than Elaine Page.

I rose early this morning, I was worried about the strange bright light that was filtering through the ragged curtains in my bedroom , it turned out to be the sun, as the day wore on it got hotter and hotter, I discarded my thick polyester jumper and quickly put on my deaths head motif tee shirt, my skin tight Lycra shorts and my orange base ball cap, the effect was stunning, In my imagination I could hear the neighbours gasping at the sight, the air was full of sexual tension and hysteria. Was the suppressed laughter I heard part of a desire to get close to me without raising suspicion from their husbands.

Bella warned me not to go outside without a towel covering my shorts, I could tell at once that she was jealous of my extraordinary affect that I had on women, so it was lovely to walk out into the garden into the sun, I could hear muffled laughter in the background, I saw Bella covering her face with her hand, her shoulders shaking and tears forming in her eyes.

Is not love grand? After all these years Bella is still crazy about me, well you cant blame her, after all as I tell her, I am quite special!

I am afraid I am going through a bad time at the moment, but I shall soon get better and I will soon get back to the wonderful stroke club, I miss all the members so much.

I hope you are all enjoying the stroke club outings, the quizzes, boat trips and the theatre etc.

Adele was telling me about the amount of cash the club made at the regular quiz outing, we will soon be a very wealthy, I have a suggestion to make on how we can spend the extra cash, for instance for the men we could have therapeutic lap dancing, blue movies and the occasional night club outings, for the lady’s we could have the occasional needlework lessons.

Look after yourselves.

Mike's stalker - all revealed

It is the woman who delivers the cats meat, and as it says on her very old van “ food for discriminating cats”.

This strange vision is stood staring at me, her mouth pouting, her red eyes slightly watering, her thin smile lighting up her slightly wrinkled face, the whole scene is

spoiled by the rather unsightly varicose veins which stretches from her ankle to her upper thigh, these veins have the unfortunate habit of throbbing in moments of sexual tension, this combined with the hairy legs gives on a slight uneasy feeling.

The poor woman has been calling on us every week for what seems forever, she completely ignores Bella’s stern voice about the our cats demise, and my wife’s pleas about stopping her regular visits.

It's May and gardening time - for some

What the hell is happening, it is the third of May, the season for gardening and supposedly the time to start the barbeque, instead it is even too cold to work in the greenhouse.

Where did the sun and gentle the warm winds go, my sexy shorts and vests are still in the wardrobe, I could see my self swaning about in the garden, all the women neighbours swooning at the sight of me, my shorts and vests clinging to my finely honed body, the remains of my hair glistening in the sun.

Have the proper seasons gone for ever, is the month of May destined to be cold for ever more, is it really this global warming nonsense causing this madness.

Bella is nearly over her broken leg syndrome, I feel she is nearly ready to resume her tap dancing fiasco, I have got her on “light” gardening duties , gentle digging and tree pruning, unfortunately she is beginning to complain about climbing up the trees to remove the high branches, I have rigged up a series of ropes and pulleys to assist her accent to the more awkward places, but still she complains.

She says that a woman of her age should not be made to double dig the vegetable patch, and even more scale the trees armed with a chain saw and an axe, there seem to be no pleasing her lately.

What a great day out at the garden centre last week, what lovely hosts Libby and Bryn are, unfortunately only the faithful turned up, it is a shame because it was a lovely day, a great lunch and we were all given a plant of our choice.

When you see the very affable Bryn walking around the garden centre, it is hard to picture him as the big boss of about seven such empires, he is so nice with a soft speaking voice, Libby said he built his empire almost from scratch, he worked all the hours that was possible, a great man.

On a different subject, our house is like an old folks home, what with Bella’s broken leg and my dodgy feet, all you can hear is the tap tap of walking sticks, we keep getting hold of the wrong sticks so we keep getting upset with each other, we form a relay team to get our food from the kitchen to the table.

The strangest sight is to see me with a Hoover in one hand and my stick in the other, it is all wrong somehow, you always seem to be wrong footed, you do not realise how hard it is, it does not do anything for my temper, in the end I throw the Hoover into the corner and pretend I have finished. I just have to hope that Bella does not check up on my housekeeping abilities.

Years ago I took a great delight in doing the gardening, unfortunately now I only talk good gardening, I keep saying I will have to see to the tomatoes or plant the runner beans, but that seems to be all I do, I don’t actually do it. In fact I have become a very good pretend gardener, everybody I meet thinks I am a brilliant gardener with wonderful vegetables and award winning flowers, the fact is my garden is strewn with mess and weeds, I just have to hope that no one visits me unexpectedly, and if they do I try to keep them indoors and just talk the talk.

Mike is searching for beauty - as we all do

I woke up this morning to the most glorious sunshine, it means that the harsh winter is finally over.

Farewell to the worst snow fall for years, frost and ice worse than most of us can remember, what happened to global warming, the Government promised us warm winters, they said that in Britain we probably would not see snow again, I even got Bella to convert all my trousers into shorts, I resurrected all my Hawaiian shirts from the back of my wardrobe, Bella thought that I had thrown them away years ago.

Does this mean that we can’t believe any thing that the Government says, do you mean to tell me that all those years I spent building up a wonderful carbon foot print have been wasted.

All those wonderful years I spent buying vegetables from South Africa, gas guzzling foreign cars, lights and taps left on, all my electrical gadgets left on stand by, pulling my toilet chain every time even though I only had a pee, was all this wasted?

Just to change the subject, Bella and I have had strange turns lately it is what we Sullivan’s call “stir crazy”, it is brought on by lack of fresh air and exercise, unfortunately Bella’s broken leg stops her from leaving the house, so we cannot even go out on our drives, those lovely trips to the countryside that we used to love so much.

We feel like prisoners in our own house, we order stuff on the internet just so that we get a visit from the delivery man, every time the delivery man comes to the door we offer him a cup of tea and a sandwich, we have got to be careful we don’t try to kidnap him, or anything to keep him there just so we can have a chat.

The men who wash out our dustbins called today and demanded eighteen pounds, this was the price of failing to pay their quite reasonable charges for washing out our dustbins, unfortunately it made us think why should we have our bins cleaned, after all we don’t smell the ghastly things, in fact we only go near them we put our rubbish in them, it is the dustmen who get the worst of it and paying eighteen pounds to ease that privilege is far too much.

Do you see how easily I slip into my grumpy old man act, it is all too easy now, once upon a time all my thoughts were happy thoughts, but over these last few years my mind has increasingly turned grumpy, even my dreams have turned grumpy, in my younger days I used to dream of skimpily dressed young women, all throwing themselves at me, I could see myself as the captain of the England cricket and football teams, both very successful and of course I would be the one scoring the winning goals or scoring the century’s.

All my dreams consist of now are people demanding that I pay them what I owe them, all the people that I meet in my dreams seem to be older and uglier, and that includes myself, my imaginary cars break down all the time, my house need urgently decorating all the time and everybody I meet seems to nag me, even my imaginary pet animals seem to spend their time either scratching or biting me.

Where will it all end, when will the young women return, when will they make me the captain again, when will the beautiful people return? I can only live in hope!

Bella is in the wars - but rescued by Mike

What a sad month January turned out, Bella broke her leg in two places, my legs took a turn for the worse, next doors budgie was attacked by number sevens ginger tom, but even worse I lost another pair of glasses, will this misery never end.

Bella slipped in the ice on the garden path, unfortunately when we arrived at Stoke Mandeville half the country had an accident, the hospital was full to bursting, people were standing shoulder to shoulder in the corridors, the hospital staff were very close to panic, the waiting patients were keeping very quite and well behaved, they had realised that it would only take one word out off place to send the staff into melt down.

I am sure that the person who put on Bella’s plaster cast was the chap who owned the local fish and chip shop, our suspicions were aroused by his white overalls and his flat cap, also his method of putting plaster on was very unusual, dipping Bella’s broken leg in a dish of wet plaster and wiping the excess off on the side of the dish seemed to be entirely wrong.

We were also a bit taken by surprise by the so called “Doctor” who checked on Bella’s leg by asking her to take her blouse and bra off and to lay there panting seductively.

My mind started to work overtime, all I would have to do would be to buy a second hand stethoscope, wear my bus pass on a piece of string around my neck and I could pass as a doctor, the world would be my oyster, endless streams of examining female patients, all I would have to learn is a few medical terms, for instance, “I am afraid madam that you have a dicomnocerated colombus” “ I am afraid that you will have to take your undergarments off and wear this black silk panties and this see through bra”, “this and heavy breathing exercise will do you the world of good”.

I know of course that with my luck the first patient that I would see would be a big hairy Irish farmer, whose ailment would be a huge horseshoe stuck in his backside, he would grasp my testicles and say “ I hope you wont be hurting me at all to day sir”.

This broken leg of Bella’s has laid her very low, she cannot bear to be idle at all, unfortunately for me she does not want me to be idle, she makes constant remarks about the state of the house, “this room needs hoovering, or this ceiling needs a lick of paint and even worse it is about time you started to wash up.

Since Bella has been laid up with her leg I have noticed how much work she does, I thought she made the breakfast and then took it easy for the rest of the day, I thought I could handle this, I thought that for the rest of the day I could perhaps have my friends around to play cards, unfortunately it did not work out like that, in fact far from it, at the end of each day my hands were red raw, I found out that it was not the Hoover fairy that visited us once a day and in fact he washing up goblin did not come at all.

I forgot about the dusting that had to be done, the breakfasts, tea and diners that had to be cooked, the stuff that had to be sorted out and washed, the ironing, the hospital visits, the well wisher visits who incidentally wanted constant cups of tea, how did Bella ever cope with this.

Their has one good thing that has come out of this, it has put a stop to my habit of dressing up in Bella’s underwear, I just have not had time!

An appetite for Christmas.........

I made a terrible mistake this week; we normally spread our Christmas dinners with our friend’s and acquaintances over a longer period, but this year we managed to get four such dinners in a week, I never thought I would ever say this but I have become quite sick of Turkey, and my known love affair with Christmas pudding has gone sadly down hill, the thought of Christmas day when I looked forward to scoffing turkey and Christmas pud like their was no tomorrow, has taken a turn for the worse.

The thought of any more sprouts, parsnips or any heavy fruit based sweet makes me feel slightly sick, and just to hear any one else wish me a merry Christmas fills me with dread.

Bella and I have become realists when it comes to buying each other gifts, once upon a time we used to buy each other hundred of pounds worth of presents, but now a days we buy our own and let our partners wrap it, we restrict it to one present, this year I know I will be getting exactly what I wanted, and the same for Bella.

Of course you know that the inevitable has happened, I have finally turned the corner and become a grumpy old man. I always knew it would happen, it was just a case of when, and how deep, Bella says that I could moan for England, I have even noticed my children have become impatient with me, the fun filled phone calls that I used to have with them have become markedly shorter, now their always seems to be one on the other line that wants to speak to them.

I have just noticed the date, it is Saturday the twenty seventh of December, Christmas has been and gone, what the hell happened, where did we spend all that money, how did we put on so much weight in such a little time, why did we buy all that food, these and other questions we ask each other every year, and every year we scratch our heads and say “tut tut”, never again, then we write down all the things that we will do different next year, unfortunately we will forget all of our mistakes and do exactly the same things again.

I am sat in my office at the moment sadly staring at this years Christmas presents, the new CD /tape/wireless gadget that I ordered from Santa has been set up on my desk, I can play all my tapes, my CDs or my wireless any time I want to, but just a minute, I could do all this before, the only difference is that this time I can do all this from one machine.

I am thinking were exactly has this benefited me, ok it has given me more room on my office shelves, room for what? More junk, more machines?

Just to change the subject for the moment, Bella has started to behave like a very powerful detective, because it is still the yuletide season, the house is packed to the rafters with sweets, nuts and assorted cakes and puddings. So what makes her go straight to my favourite armchair every morning, it is only a matter of chance that she does not use a magnifying glass, she counts the amount of discarded sweet wrappers, foil cake cups, nut shells, empty fizzy drink cans and the mess in general. She questions me, she demands to know how I managed to have a party for thirty people in the house without her knowledge, she wants to know how one person can eat and drink that much without actually exploding.

My explanation to her that I am doing my bit for the Planet, or I am trying to help the land fill situation, unfortunately my green credentials don’t appear to cut any ice with her, I can hear her muttering under her breath as she walks away “ how did I ever get tangled up with that bloody hog ?” She sobs quietly and says “ I could have made something of myself? I could have married someone with money, or at least someone with a smaller appetite”

Visiting Libby & Bryn's garden centre at Iver

What a great day out we had at the garden centre, our hosts were the lovely duo, Bryn and Libby, they treated us to a wonderful lunch, a beautiful Poinsettia plant and

A tour of behind the scenes of a garden centre.

It was quite breathtaking, one wonderful sight after another, we saw a huge greenhouse full to the brim with poinsettias, it was a sea of startling red, it took your breath away, Bryn showed us the modern machinery used by his staff to bring on the plants, seed dispensers, pot fillers, and all manner of compost mixers, conveyors, huge gas fired boilers. etc, etc..

They still have the staff to do the jobs that the machines cannot handle, in fact we came across three of the staff at a table on the tour, and in my usual silly way I approached them and said something which I thought was very amusing, the staff had that look of people who had been approached by a madman. I thought surely that was some of my best stuff, Bella said in her most superior way “perhaps it will go better in the second house”.

Bryn told me later that the three staff that I had approached had in fact been Polish, they probably had not understood a word I said, and this instantly cured my depression, and brought a smile to my face.

We had the meal in the garden centre café, wonderful food, served by smiling efficient staff, I thought at first that we were getting better treatment than the other diners, we being guests of the owner, but in fact all of the café customers were treated the same.

That is the second great day out in the hands of Libby and Bryn, the first was the trip earlier in the year to their river property, the trip out included a trip on the river Thames in Bryn’s electric motor launch.

In the manner of travellers through out the world I got completely lost on my way home from the garden centre, I tried to fool my passengers that I had taken the pretty way home, but this started to fail after three quarters of an hour, we eventually found our way after we passed the same place three or four times.

On a completely different subject, I have been watching a program on the television called Indian cooking made easy, I have decided to call it Indian cooking made not quite so impossible, in no way could you ever call it easy, the list of ingredients for one particular recipe that I fancied called pork Vindaloo is enough to frighten you, for instance what the hell is a 1/2” piece of Cinnamon? And I don’t think even Indians know what “Green Cardamom pods, seeds only” means?

I remember seeing a recipe for fish pie not so long ago, we decided to make it ourselves, and so we bought the ingredients and made the pie, it was not great, but after we had eaten it I totted up what we had paid out, we discovered the pie had cost us about seventeen pounds to make, the same pie bought in Asda cost us £1.99,, and that one tasted delicious.

The trouble is I have an overwhelming urge to try to cook this Vindaloo, will this be the last nail in our coffin, will this finally force us into bankruptcy? Or even worse a messy divorce, what will a divorce Judge make of a couple breaking up over a “Vindaloo” recipe? Even more frightening “ an easy Indian Vindaloo recipe.”

A happy Christmas and a happy new year to everybody!