The other day, for the first time in months, my piggy bank gave me the nod to go ahead and spend some pocket money. However, seemingly unable to break from my thrifty shackles, I decided to have a blow out in… Asda.
I sat at the kitchen table (as I so often do), made myself a cup of tea and surveyed the contents of the kitchen cupboards. After some rooting around I found my favourite pen. I folded open a new notebook and made my first attempt at menu planning. Ha! Menu planning. Forget it, Martha Stewart. After about 10 minutes scribbling down ideas for what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next month, my brain was a-boggled. Have you tried to do that? Look into the future and plan what you’ll eat for lunch next Thursday? It’s difficult. So – I ditched that fleeting meal planning idea and decided just to get my shoesies on and head for the supermarket.
I hadn’t been outside for days – partly due to the horrid weather, partly because I was feeling a little bit poorly but mostly because outside seems like such a waste of time at the minute. However, on this day, the day I went outside to go to the supermarket to spend money, it wasn’t raining. Actually, it was quite a warm day. I left my jacket at home in some bid to make myself feel summery.
The bus came almost straight away – which was just as well. Had I had to hang around in the bus shelter for a moment longer I may have felt compelled to scold a group of primary school children (also waiting for the bus) who seemed incapable of talking to one another without shouting ‘fuck’ unnecessarily at regular intervals or hitting one another with empty plastic bottles.
After a few minutes travelling further east on the bus, I felt something was amiss. “Hm… I’m pretty sure Parkhead’s that way > “. As the bus veered off in the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go in, and the one I thought I was going in, I panicked. I was on The Wrong Bus. I was so quick to scrabble off the street and to get inside (or as inside as a gal can get when she’s really outside), I’d hopped on the number 41 when I ought to have waited a moment or two longer within earshot of the feral children and hopped on the number 40. The number 41 does not go to Asda.
A good half hour later, having wound my way through pockets of the eastend I’d never seen before – on the bus with loads of other passengers who knew exactly where they were and where the were going – I spotted a Morrisons supermarket. Now, Morrisons sure ain’t no Asda Price, but when you’re about to be stranded at the Easterhouse bus terminal with no bus fare to get back home, I wondered if maybe Morrisons’ fruit and veg section might be as good as any other. I got off the bus.
Morrisons fruit and veg section turned out to be better than Asda’s.
The next morning, with a fridge full of well priced, fresh produce, I found myself faced with a rare dilemma. Whatever shall I have for breakfast? I had options. I rejected all the usual breakfast fare. I ate pudding for breakfast. And it was fabulous.
‘Inspired-by-Auntie-M-but-not-exactly-the-same-Breakfast-Pudding’
I chopped up plums, nectarines and strawberries. I threw in raspberries and blueberries. I cut two plain scones in half. I threw the fruit (plus juicey bits) onto the scones. I squirted some canned cream on the side. I got a spoon from the drawer and I relished every last mouthful. Try it. It’s fun. Weird, tasty fun.
