School Dinners

There are two parts to this:

On the one hand the school dinners are crap, made of cheap ingredients slung together by people fit only to cut open boxes and put the contents into a microwave oven for heating up purposes.

That's why my child won't touch the stuff.

On the other hand they've been improved from a staggeringly low base and now comprise stuff other than turkey twizzlers, 'sausages' and chips. Menus include vegetables and fruit and wow, other stuff with nutritional value. And they cost money. Lots of money. Over a whole, entire pound.

And there are lots of kids up and down the country won't touch anything green, or for that matter that doesn't come out of either the microwave or deep fryer. And there's an army of militant mothers out there who resent their children being forced to eat this good food and bitterly resent having to pay for the stuff.

£1.60 is an outrageous amount of money to spend on a child's main meal of the day.

The third thing I did today

I watered the remaining tomato plants today. There is NO prospect of any of the fruit turning even slightly red, watering them is a total waste of time. I did it for the same reason I feed the cat, I'm stupidly soft and sentimental. A fool. These are living things and they need water. And maybe I'll find my mother's recipe for green tomato chutney before they wither away.

Smoke gets in your clothes...

Within five minutes for arriving at work today I'd drafted the opening line of this post: "Stumped up to be confronted by Yoda and the Big Swinging Dick doing a sick-making double act..."

but I mustn't be mean to the BSD. I must be NICE to the BSD because the feed back following our brace of excursions to the big smoke continues to be very very positive and a glimmer of hope might just reside there in.

I've given him serious amounts of kudos and he KNOWS it because I can do things that he can't. He can do lots of things I can't (like remember and retell really filthy jokes, but that's another story) but he lacks the polish that comes of being a senior manager within a global management consultancy who might be asked at a few hours notice to turn up in the office of some SERIOUS City of London heavy weight and interview him (or her? don't make me fucking laugh) from a position of strength or at least credibility.

It is an act but not one that everyone can pull off. I did. For years. And I still have it, too. I can't do the ducking and diving that he can, or at least I can't do it as well as he can.

The two skills are not necessarily mutually exclusive, in fact I can think of some slimy shit bags who were working my side of the fence when I was in the city who would leave him eating their slime trail any day. But I don't have it. That's why I only made it as high up the food chain and went when I did. I didn't complain then, I'm not complaining now. I don't want to have what it would have taken. Simple really.

Ours has the makings of what is known in the trade as a symbiotic relationship. But that entails me getting something out of it, too. So far all I've got is respect, but that's more than I've hitherto enjoyed.

So I'm basking in that faintly golden glow and struggling to keep the contents of my stomach in at the same time. Thank God it really is true that women can multi-task.

Mind you, this was the height of today's demands on me. Even dealing with the fact that Darryl the Dick Fiddler's formerly gorgeous older brother has totally outgrown his looks and is now of deeply weird mien. How sad. He's only a boy still. He's got an entire life to get through looking like that.

And Jack the Lad is getting all hairy, which is slightly icky. I'm developing a crush on Carl "shocking" Hot But Dim, and the worst of it is that The Paper Shuffler in Chief fancies him too. I might need a lie down and some serious medication. Carl suggested that I needed to "chill, smoke something". Perhaps he's not as dim as most people suggest.

Blah, blah. More of the same. Bolshie Book Worm took over in the afternoon. Senior Frustrated Novelist was my side kick.

Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here. Dismal customers, plenty of WAFIs about.

Summer started three days ago but it probably won't last long. It will, after all, be September before the end of the week. Today we had the first and probably final barbecue of the year. How sad is that. Loads of lovely beer (oh, didn't I mention I'd fallen off the wagon and landed with a hell of a thud?). How did I leave that bit out? How naughty of me.

Apart from the bread and the meat the ingredients were all picked from the garden in which we cooked and ate, as required. That's something. Nowt fresher than the spuds the offspring grubbed, the 'rots she pulled, the beans she plucked.

Genius. My clothes stink of smoke, of course. Small price to pay. Now two evening shifts and a morning shift and an evening shift and ... I can't see any writing being done between now and next Sunday. Not even in my head.

Shit.

Big Smoke

Yesterday's journey to town included a bone shaking journey across country along 'B' roads, though how much contact there was at any given moment in time between all four wheels and the road surface is a matter of conjecture, but something perhaps not best contemplated by someone likely to have to repeat the experience at some time in the future.

We're broke again (or still) so we won't be escaping the public transport bind for a while.

I had an anxiety attack during the week. That was another thing. A year after the last round of serious money worries we're no further forward. And I looked on the home office web site. I have two visa options but one of them, holding it would make it far easier to get a better paid job, will cost me the best part of £1,000 while the other will cost just over £300. It just isn't going to be possible to make the investment in the 'better' visa. I also need a car if I'm going to get to and fro that better job. How the fuck am I supposed to get myself out of this cesspit he dug for me?

The upside of the bus journey was that it took less time than it should have, and we were ahead of ourselves. Also the trains were running right into London rather than stopping outside and dumping us onto the underground. We had bucket loads of time to kill and he suggested popping into the Museum of London; this was fine by me as it meant we didn't actually have to talk. The museum has come on strongly since I first visited it almost 15 years ago. This time we didn't get past the pre-history gallery of case upon case of flint, old bone, pottery shards and the occasional piece of ornamentation. This is all while major work is going on to revive the lower galleries, but I was perfectly to pass half an hour there.

Then legging it across to the west to the coach station, travelling by the No.11 which used to be such a cool experience and is now in many ways just another bus journey, albeit one that takes the passenger from the heart of the city, via St Paul's (where we picked it up) down Ludgate Hill to the point where what was once the Fleet is crossed. From there on up Fleet Street and the Strand, towards Trafalgar Square then onwards to the Abbey and in to Victoria.

At some point we picked up a couple of old dears very much off their patch (Knightsbridge to go by the accent) and one was moved to remark to the other - but quite loudly enough that the entire assembled company heard her over the engine, that "London is rather full of tourists these days!" which made me and the few other people on the bus with enough English to understand smile. She and her friend tottered off somewhere down Victoria Street, still a long way from home. Perhaps they were a couple of well-heeled crusty recusants off to the Cathedral to bother God.

We were on time, the coach was late. The board said "Delayed, no information available". The information desk was equally informative. The coach turned up about forty minutes late. She looked tired. We said our farewells to the friend she'd made last year and kept in touch with. She insisted she'd had a good time but she wasn't bounding the way I'd expect. We dragged her luggage to a cheap restaurant and fed our faces, then went up to Covent Garden to spend money (but note the opening to this post). Apparently it had to be done. We bought booze, but Vic Bitter and Coopers Ale have lost their appeal. They just aren't as good as I once thought they were. But we had to buy some and some food.

So now we were dragging luggage and shopping through London's crowded streets with an exhausted child in tow. We got a little more about her week from her. The coach was late getting in because the driver took the wrong route and put them that much behind schedule. I hope the two German kids they'd had on the camp and who they dumped at Heathrow to get a plane home didn't miss their flight. Before she went away we'd talked about going to the good Indian restaurant in town for a nosh-up, but by the time we got back we were all too tired to go out again.

The cat has perked up no end with the Little One's return and the second coming of the Pink Palace.

The Palace, meanwhile, has lost some of its lustre apparently. Although she slept in it last night she came up in the morning and crawled under the covers of her 'little old bed'. We haven't had a summer and the jumpers which I never did get around to packing properly are now being worn again. The days are shortening and she'll be back to school. I have the school shoes and most of the rest of it can give us a bit more wear. Thankfully.

Next year it is spy camp we've been told, whether or not her friend from last year is going too. Here's hoping that the paternal grandmother can stump up the readies, 'cos I can't see us affording it unless one of his scratch cards turns out to be a big payer.

Next thing is to shake off yet another bug. Another novel, a bit derivative but what isn't, has started to take shape and the only way to get rid of it will be to write it down.