Twilight

I SEEM TO have been a little delinquent with my blog for the last few days; my only excuse is that my own routines have been somewhat upset, as well as my sleeping hours.

My Good Lady has been a bit out of kilter, too – so much so, that I seem to have done quite a lot of the cooking this week.

On a more positive note, we’ve finally got our hi-fi unit repaired and returned – it’s taken nearly a month, mainly because Curry’s right hand doesn’t know what their left hand is doing.

Anyhow, we stop by the Pub coming out of town, and we find there, in the Geriatrics’ Corner, a character I always dread to see.

We call him “Twilight”.

He must be in his late sixties or early seventies by now, a crumple-faced, hollow cheeked man with long, thinning, untidy grey hair and who, I’m convinced, always wears the same clothes – mainly shades of grey in all their dreadful, crumpled familiarity.

He somehow seems to think that I enjoy his company; whenever he sees me he makes a beeline for yours truly and parks himself next to me.

In fact, I tolerate his presence, and not always with the best of grace: I mean he’s not a bad man, he’s just such a bore!

He’s full of endless, long-winded stories which he fondly believes are of consuming interest to me. Often he’ll start a tale and half-way through it he’ll have forgotten the beginning. Nor does he believe in sparing me any tortuous details – not for Twilight is the virtue of cutting a long story short, oh no!

But that’s not the worst. He has an annoying habit of interrupting my conversation with someone else, and insisting that I pay him exclusive attention. If I try to ignore him, he’ll tug at my sleeve or my trouser leg until he has my full concentration again.

And he just will not let me go!

Now I hate being rude or making a scene, but I’m really biting my tongue today with this deeply irritating – if unconscious – rudeness.

I’m quite convinced he’s not “all there”, and no doubt he is a lonely man – but why, oh why, does he have to pick on me!

The view across the Bay

WE’RE DRIVING along Morecambe’s Marine Drive and the view across to the far shore takes our breaths away.

Across the vast expanse of the Bay, over the wet, gleaming sands and mudflats, the Lakeland fells stand out clear and pin sharp in the golden light of the late afternoon.

The higher peaks have already got the first winter snows on them.

There was a time when I never left home without a camera bag on the back seat, but not so in these, my post-photographic days; for once, though, I really wish I’d brought the camera with me.

It’s one of those rare days when the view is quite simply spectacular.

Makes me realise afresh how lucky we are to be living on the edge of Morecambe Bay.

Foody fads

OUR DINNER this evening is home-made sweet and sour pork, and it seems strange to say that it’s the first time I’ve attempted this Chinese classic.

The pork fillet is cut into chunks and marinated in dry sherry and light soy sauce.

My Good Lady has already made up the batter – a simple flour and egg goo; we dunk the pork into seasoned flour then into the batter and fry it, in batches, for a few minutes and set it aside.

Next I stir-fry some cubed pepper and sliced spring onions, then return the cooked pork along with some pineapple chunks and sliced red chillies into the wok and let it all warm through.

Finally, I pour in the sauce mixture – a blend of pineapple juice, brown sugar, tomato ketchup, light soy sauce and white wine vinegar.

As the blend is looking a little runny, MGL makes up a cornflour mixture to thicken it up a bit.

We serve it on plain, boiled long-grain rice, and wash it down with a German Riesling.

Oh yes!

Over dinner we discuss some of our friends’ odd attitudes towards food.

Take PD for example. Every weekend he has a roast, but then for days afterwards he has the leftover meat in sandwiches and salads and such like until it’s all gone.

It doesn’t seem to occur to him to freeze the stuff and vary it with other things.

It would keep for weeks, if not months, and he could enjoy it over a period.

Pre-freezer days, yes, we would have had to eat the meat before it went off, but today…?

And then there’s Steve, who always buys his vegetables prepared, and ready for the pot.

Not for him the chore of peeling and slicing – to us this is part of the fun of cooking; it doesn’t take but a few minutes and it costs a fraction of the price.

Odd, as I say.

But then, when we tell people about having two ounces of minced beef in a meal, or half a tin of sardines in a flan, no doubt they think of us as odd.

There’s nowt so strange as folk, is there?