Hitting the Wall

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then?
Poor thing!
He'll sit in the barn
And keep himself warm,
And hide his head under his wing.
Poor thing!

When I was a young swimmer, slogging through many lengths of the pool in training, there would come a time, usually pretty late in the session, when I felt as if I could not go one more turn, one more kick, one more arm pull. It would seem insurmountable. But, if you made the turn, gave the kick, grabbed the water and pulled, you moved, you kept going, if slowly. That point of feeling stopped was referred to as ‘hitting the wall’. 

I know it is a saying in other endurance sports. I looked it up in Wikipedia and found it easily. “In endurance sports such as road cycling and long-distance running, hitting the wall or the bonk is a condition of sudden fatigue and loss of energy which is caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles. Milder instances can be remedied by brief rest and the ingestion of food or drinks containing carbohydrates. Otherwise, it can be remedied by attaining second wind by either resting for approximately 10 minutes or by slowing down considerably and increasing speed slowly over a period of 10 minutes. Ten minutes is approximately the time that it takes for free fatty acids to sufficiently produce ATP in response to increased demand.”

The description is fascinating. No one hauled us out of the pool and fed us a high carb drink. No. We were just told to get on with it. And it is harder to drink in a pool than while running along the road -  not that the latter looks easy in the videos I havc watched.  I do recall seeing photos of the support boat in marathon swims where there was someone holding a bottle out on a long pole and thinking ‘REALLY?” I guess, it really happened.

At any rate, what I started out to babble about was that I think I hit the wall today. It is the start of the last week of February, February being trapped at home by winter month here, but I had three occasions to be with people planned. The first one got cancelled this morning, the third one is not going to work, I am afraid, and a fine warm winter morning, with sun, has given way to howling wind and arctic temperatures. Two might get called on account of weather. Wall right in front of me. Thump.

So, what will the robin do then, poor thing? She sat herself down and wrote it all out and while this may not be the carbohydrate load that is recommended, it is at least making the turn, eh?

Our poor hockey players. They did not ‘win’ silver. They lost gold. But they did us proud. There is a group of people who are allowed to feel blue.

Back to Grade School

I saw, in a post comment, a question as to whether one should say “I feel bad.” Or “I feel badly”. The answer is, alas, either, depending on context.

Verbs, you were taught, can be either ‘transitive’, needing an object (a transaction) to follow or ‘intransitive’, needing an adjective or adverb to enlarge on the idea.

So, you can feel the towel to see if it is still wet or you can feel happy. So far, are you with me? Reluctantly, but still reading?

Adjectives become adverbs, in  many cases, by having ‘ly’ added.  It is a quiet room, not a quietly room. Right? You by the door, do not slam it behind you. The first use is as a descriptor for ‘room’; the second answers the question ‘how?’. As an example, You by the door, leave quietly. (Answers 'how') Your exit should be a quiet one. (Describes 'one') Or even "Your exit will be quiet if you do not slam the door." (Describes 'exit')

So, you can have a bad dream, but not a badly dream. You need to turn the sentence around and dream badly. In the first instance, the dream is defined. In the second, what you are doing, the question ‘how’, is answered.

How are you feeling? I feel sick, overwhelmed, wet, bad. ‘Intransitive’ use. Descriptor for ‘feeling’. What is not shown here is that "I feel" is actually a shortened form [grammatically noted as 'understood'] of "I am feeling..."

How do you feel? Badly. I have gloves on and that makes it hard to identify small objects. Transitive; you are running your gloved hand over something understood to be there.- you are doing something; a transaction.

Got it? Class dismissed. 

Clean Thoughts

 Old age has some fine moments. One of these moments is now, as I am ensconced in my fine office chair (a gift for my birthday several years ago), writing this post in glorious leisure while my neighbour scrubs out my bathroom for me. I can’t manage this kind of work any more and so I have hired her – young, muscular and hard-working – and my bathroom is looking good. It will also smell good and be organized when she is done.

Our first job was to empty out the storage closet. An embarrassing number of things were stale dated (some by years) and got binned. There is also a collection to take to our local recycling centre. And the things to keep are being returned to unstained, clean shelves. It is a salutary operation to sort out the keepers from the junk. In my case, a little voice in my head keeps saying “WHY did you ever keep THAT???”. Not sure how you shut up that kind of little voice.

As you can see from the paragraphs above, the downsizing is going on. It gives me the cold chills, however, to think about doing my office.

This afternoon the hockey teams are in play for a place in the finals. I am not sure I have the strength to watch; one more incident like the one that took out Crosby and I may have to stop watching entirely. These days Olympic level play is about the only thing left where the game is a game. Other than hockey and skating, ignoring the scoring in the latter, I don’t really care for the winter games. There is too much that is not fun to watch – long track speed skating, for instance – or too nerve-wracking – short track speed skating, for sure. Ah well, I am sure Canada’s teams will be out there trying today.

Grammarly wanted me to put commas after each of the opening clauses in the paragraph above and I am ignoring it. I think too many commas spoils the cadence. This, while I sit with my mother’s favourite grammar text beside me, looking at all her underlining and comments, while I try to get the {censored} Oxford comma rule stuck into my head. Again. The book, just in passing, is Douglas Brown’s A Handbook of Composition, 1953 edition, and is pretty beat up. But it will last me out. My other go-to is Dreyer’s English. I am on my second copy.

If my mother could read this, she and Grammarly would have a field day. The Microsoft Word grammar check, on the other hand, is quite happy to pass the whole thing.

Anniversary Time

 It is February 14^th. In two days we will have a wedding anniversary. I have put up posts similar to this one in other years as mid February rolls around. But as I think about it, each year is now a victory. Twenty-five is so long ago as to have vanished from my memory. Fifty I clearly recall, as JG’s brother came to help us celebrate and complimented my driving on the way back from the city where most of us (I don’t drink alcohol much) had hoisted many toasts, leaving me (and I knew better than to drink on that occasion) as the designated driver. At sixty we were deeply embedded in Covid restrictions and the vaccine was not yet out, so our celebration was quite muted. But Monday, February 16^th, is our sixty-third wedding anniversary. And we are going to have a fine celebration.

The daughters are shopping and planning presently. They will arrive with food and other delights, cook, serve, clean and depart, having given the old folks a fine, fine dinner. Sixty-three years ago now JG and I were getting ready to go to a formal Valentine’s Day dance run by a group called ‘Levana’, I was never sure why, the society of women undergrads at my university. Women, you see, were not part of Arts and Science, but held a place apart. Very fifties, a time we had just barely left behind on the calendar and not, obviously, at our university.

We were both undergrads when we married. It was an unusual step to take then, but if we wanted to share an accommodation, it was necessary. ‘Shacking up’ was just Not Done. You can find the details of this decision here. 

We have celebrated in many ways over the years, mostly quietly. A dear friend threw a fifty-first party to celebrate her marriage. Her husband had refused to countenance a fiftieth as he was sure it was bad luck. She rented a hall and invited the whole community, it seemed like, for a fine fifty-first time. My YD always said that she had no desire to be married, but that she would like a party. I have this in mind, D, darling.

As I was hauling clothing out of the closet to fold and donate, one thing that came out was a silk brocade jacket. This jacket was a garment that I loved and saved and wore for dress occasions for years. It was half of my mother-of-the-bride outfit (with a matching pencil skirt that I only wore once). My ED did get married – and unmarried some years later – and since she was out of the country working for a graduate degree, mother on the home front planned and put together the ceremony and subsequent celebration. My much-loved and clever sister-in-law helped me plan, having had three daughters’ worth of experience.

I got distracted looking for a photo of this jacket, and it is now the hiatus day between Valentine and Wedding Anniversary. We are celebrating this with steak; tomorrow the daughters are arriving with food and taking over. We have a galley kitchen with a small table at one end allowing the two chairs we need when eating alone. I plan to relax in one of these chairs and watch the show. The daughters’ mad ice dance in the kitchen is a treat to watch although there are no overhead lifts.

And yet another bra was just delivered. From famine to a feast.

Downsizing

 Reporting in. What have (read this word with emphasis) I been doing lately? Well, shopping, for one thing. I decided that my underwear situation was so dire that Something Had To Be Done. And, so. I ventured into a local shop that sells madly overpriced (to my estimate) underwear and got fitted for brassieres. I bought two, one of which has so much lace and twinkly bits on it that if I am hit by a car and end up in hospital, I hope I am not wearing it. However, it fits and is comfortable. I have used the sizing on it to order more bras online at a more reasonable price. This was not totally successful, as two of the lot I ordered turned out to have thick, foam-padded cups.

This extra shaping is not useful, in my opinion. Padding would have been useful when I was in my teens and stuffing Kleenex tissues into the cups of my bras. When you are completely without breast tissue and the ideal female body belongs to Marilyn Monroe, padding is a wistful thought. The thick padding would also have been a boon when we were building the house and I was carrying large, heavy pieces of wood around, balanced on my chest. But not these days. The dern things were hot as well as a nuisance and I think I looked weird in them. 

So, the padded ones have been packed into boxes and bags along with a lot of formal clothes that I will never fit into again or have occasion to need – things I bought to wear to weddings or parties. And anything more than two sizes down from what fits was also culled. There are a lot of empty hangars in my closet.

When we part with ‘good stuff’, we like it to go to a local organization that runs the Food Pantry Store. Donations go to it, the store offers it for resale at good prices and uses the money earned to fund the local food bank. As well as the clothes, I made one swoop through the shelves in the ‘back room’ in the basement where stuff congregates. 'Stuff' got sorted and boxed and I have some space on the shelves now. Much more needs to be done there.

As to how I am doing this, it is with hired help. A local woman, a musician, is trying to put together funds to go on tour. Like many musicians, she was really hit hard by the Covid lockdowns, and she decided to amass some cash by working at whatever came to hand. I was delighted at the chance to get things done that I can no longer manage to do myself. So far she has washed down my kitchen, walls, cupboards and the grotty bits of kickplate and corners that the bi-weekly clean does not reach. As well, she has packed and lugged off to the Food Pantry store all of this ‘stuff’ I am divesting myself of. The Food Pantry Store is reached across a parking lot and up a flight of stairs that I find really daunting, let alone trying to navigate carrying boxes and bags. So my helper is doing that, on hourly wage. A very reasonable wage, at that. I know what my daughters pay in the city and it is a lot more.

I have more spaces that I have not been able to clean or sort or divest of clutter, and so I am hoping this worker will stick. She will also do gardening, she says. At one time I took pride in a tidy surround to the house, and, if things work out, I may be able to do so again.

JG and I are now in or approaching our mid eighties, and so I am trying to line up what we will need to help us stay here and live well for as long as possible. Including having things to wear that fit. I have a little list. Expect a report on underpants in a later installment.

Fugit? Just a Bit.

 The ED and partner were out today, bringing us a varied and delicious lunch and, as well, doing a bit of housework and shovelling. The ED went for a shot snowshoe but found it hard going – no trail – and bitterly cold with the high wind that we still had. She said she worried a bit about frostbite. I  had to laugh, because the year that she and her sister got their own snowshoes for Christmas, the Boxing Day weather was a match for today’s in cold and wind, but it was sunny and the girls had to try their new freedom and so we went out for a walk. And I watched their small rosy faces like a hawk, looking for white patches that would signal a problem. I guess I make a point, because the daughter, today, said she was checking. And she will be 60 on her birthday in two month’s time.

How does this happen? a small voice in my head is babbling. How do small rosy girls in so short a time turn into highly accomplished adults with stellar careers behind them, life choices worked out (well, sort of), capable senior women who arrive to look after their aged parents. Wasn’t that Boxing Day walk just a few years ago? There’s a Latin tag that says it all. Provided you were squashed through high school Latin, that is. Otherwise, it is almost always translated. “The most common Latin phrase for "fleeting time" is Tempus fugit, which literally translates to "time flees" or, more commonly, "time flies". “

In fact, what I was thinking of was Horace, not Vergil. “Eheu fugaces labuntur anni is a famous Latin phrase from the Roman poet Horace meaning "Alas, the fleeting years slip by," a poignant reflection on the swift passage of time and the transient nature of life, often used to encourage living in the moment, much like the modern "YOLO" (You Only Live Once). It comes from Horace's Odes (Book 2, Ode 14) and serves as a reminder that life is short, urging us to appreciate it before it's gone.” 

I do love the internet’s ability to patch the leaking holes in my aged brain this way, I really do. Both these quotes are from Google’s AI summaries.

If I were to be honest, and I made a pact with myself to be honest here, I liked Latin. Or, I did until I got in over my head. High school Latin was finite, memorizable, and I got fine marks and thought highly of myself. And so, I selected it as a minor in my university course, a teachable second subject for a Type A teaching certificate. And I ended up, because the subject was very specialized, in small classes with the Classics majors. Who were much better at it than I was. Where the breadth of the course was too wide to allow of my memorizing the translations. And I struggled. Got bare passing grades. But I still loved it by times, especially a course in Latin drama where we got to read aloud. Pure fun. Of course, I never taught it because it was almost out of fashion by the time I was teaching. 

Very occasionally I get to mention that I studied Latin in university for four years and the amusement in watching the face of my listener is worth a lot.

Anyone want to take a selfie? But , come on, you always knew I was a bit weird.

Doomscrolling

 

I like words, the more precise, the better. And lately I have been coming across “doomscrolling” and thought it was pertinent to how the world is watching itself implode. So, I looked it up. My usual and helpful place to look is Wikipedia, and here is what I found, edited.

Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of time watching short-form content or watching large quantities of user-generated content or news, particularly negative news, on the web and social media. The concept was coined around 2020, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) observed that the pandemic was accompanied by widespread misleading information, conspiracy theories, and false reports, which it referred to as an "infodemic".

Origins: The practice of doomscrolling can be compared to an older phenomenon from the 1970s called the mean world syndrome, described as "the belief that the world is a more dangerous place to live in than it actually is as a result of long-term exposure to violence-related content on television".  Studies show that seeing upsetting news leads people to seek out more information on the topic, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

In common parlance, the word "doom" connotes darkness and evil. In the World Wide Web's infancy, "surfing" was a common verb used in reference to browsing the web; similarly, the word "scrolling" refers to sliding through online content.  After three years of being on the Merriam-Webster "watching" list, "doomscrolling" was recognized as an official word in September 2023.

I don’t think I am doing this myself, since I use a small number of what I hope are reliable sources and don’t spend a lot of time on them. But the odd time I wander through links, and find both interesting and devastating content.

Interesting? Maybe only to me. I just ran across an interview with the Princess Royal done by CBC at around the time of Charles III’s coronation, and found it to be a fascinating look at a person we usually only see in photos. I found her answers to be intelligent and very, very careful. I ended up wondering if she had managed the interview to the extent of vetting the questions ahead of time. Obviously, very much attached and a support to her mother. Maybe less so to her brother. 

The other thing I found was a post about Christia Freeland on Facebook. I looked at the comments, thinking I might add one and, to my dismay, found over half of them to be from ‘trolls’ (or worse, but the name is useful) dumping on her for giving money to Ukraine or wrecking the Canadian economy. (And those were the better spelled and worded; many were  illiterate.) I was quite surprised at the extent of the vitriol. It was a good example of what I have also seen discussed, the vulnerability of women in the public eye to the worst sorts of misogyny. 

I do not think I will become a doomscroller, other than taking in what the daily dose of American misbehaviour is reported to be, but I found this exercise to be a good reminder of what I don’t know and an exercise I should do more often.

 (If they only spelled it correctly!!!)

The Unwrap

 Christmas has come, and my family has come and gone, well fed and bearing gifts. Mind you, they came bearing gifts.  The YD took a photo of the table loaded with turkey goodness.

I think there is also a shot of the tree surrounded by boxes and bags. Must see if I can add it. We had an orgy of things, including an amazing range of cookies baked for Grandpa by she who is no longer known as Little Stuff. Grandpa was instructed to put some of the containers of these treats into the freezer; he is probably stocked up for months. I got a box of my own, of my favourites. As well as carefully chosen objects of virtue, much chocolate was exchanged. My boxes are sitting beside this keyboard and I think I may have to put at least one into the freezer as well before I expand beyond the capacity of my glorious new sweaters to stretch.

There are two gifts, however, that require description. One is a glorious ‘tabletop’ book, by Michelle Obama. I have paged through it once and will read it again with more care. The photos are gorgeous, the production of them is excellent and there are, um, a whole lot of them. My one complaint is that the full page spreads do not have page numbers on them, I guess because the producers of the book did not want to spoil the beauty of the layout. This makes it very difficult to figure out who is pictured in some of them. You are directed to go to the notes in the back and there are page numbers with the information there, but there is no easy way to tie these numbers to the photos. 

Most confusing is that there is a whole chapter on reception clothing with multiple photos that have no captions or numbers. I finally identified a photo of the reception of the Canadian Prime Minister and his wife (Trudeau junior at that time) by spotting part of his head and Mrs. Trudeau’s shoulder and recognising a bit of her (very  ugly I thought) dress. I now have page 203 pinned down and may have to put sticky notes on the earlier and later full page photos in that chapter, my memory being what it is. Worth it, though. Still, I am left trying to decide who is walking with Mrs. Obama in the shot described above. Captions, sigh.

The book is really a 'must' read, lack of numbers and all. Mrs. Obama and her staff have all contributed full and useful explanations as to why she chose to wear various looks and how they were achieved, providing a fascinating look into a very exotic life event. Specifically for a Caucasian like me who just gets her thin straight hair chopped off at frequent intervals, the discussion of how ‘African’ hair is styled and disciplined is amazing. Would you believe most of a day every week? Yikes.

Another gift that is going to take up most of a week, or probably more, is a jigsaw puzzle given to me by the YD. One thousand pieces and look at it! 

She did say she would help me with it, and that is a good thing, or a week would not even get me started. My grandkid says I will learn a lot about birds from doing it. She was laughing as she offered this comment. I may wait until she visits to start trying to assemble.

I am two chocolate truffles down. I really have to move that box away from here. 

I was given four books in total and am just starting the second, Margaret Atwood’s autobiography – Book of Lives, A Memoir of Sorts. So far I have read about her high school career and was most amused by the description of what could have been, in some parts, my own experience. She has two years of seniority on me and so we suffered through the same events. Departmental exams, for one. I may have to quote that passage, as you almost have to be as old as we are to know what those were. “At the end of Grade Thirteen was a sadistic torture event known as ‘The Departmentals’. This was a series of exams – one for each subject you were taking - set by an unknown committee and written by every student in Grade Thirteen across the province. Your pass or fail and your high or low marks determined whether you would get into a university and which one, and whether you would win a scholarship.” You wrote these in June, in blistering, non-air-conditioned heat. And waited until almost August to get the results. “Torture Event” is not an exaggeration. 

My goodness but that woman can write!

As described, we had a lovely day, with much turkey and all the trimmings to follow the grand ripping. My wonderful daughters, plus the outlaw* and the grandkid, did all the planning and preparation, all the work and cleanup. After sixty odd years of being the madwoman in the kitchen, I found this the best gift of all.

(*My daughter and her partner have been together for over a quarter century. But they are not conventionally married. And so, while he may be a son in common law, I think outlaw works better.)

Solstice

 

Winter solstice:

'Tis the Season

 What follows  is a holly, jolly babble about Christmas folly, by golly.

I think all the snail mail Christmas cards are done. If I have missed someone, they will probably think I have up and died, or ‘passed’ as most obituaries say these days. I can’t figure that and I have no intention of passing, thank you. Ave, amicus, morituri te salutant. Or something like that. My Latin is a long way behind me and I was never very good at it. Now to get the cards in the mail. They will probably arrive in 2026, but, hey, I did them.

I have just printed off calendar planning sheets for 2026, speaking of the next year that is almost upon us. We do have Christmas in between. I am Going to Get Organized. (Hey there, ML). Actually, I am probably not going to be organized at all, and my memory banks are going to be as full of holes as my favourite colander, but we will have pages on a clipboard onto which is supposed to be entered all of our appointments with times and locations. This may even happen, but will the sheets get read? Come back next month for a new and enthralling installment. Yeah.

If I sound cranky, it is because I am cranky. Getting Organized is Not Fun. I have lost the last bill from the propane fill, I have not sent off JG’s magazine renewal and it needs enough postage to take it to the States, unless I phone it in, but I have two sets of errands to run tomorrow, AM and PM, so I can’t call until Monday.  Grumble. Must check the wrapping paper supply since I will be next to the source of all things Christmas tomorrow afternoon. Our local dollar store is a festive sink of Christmas Stuff. I am adding a note here that one of my errands got cancelled. The event was a visit to my doctor to have a non-working finger examined. Doctor called in sick and so the finger will now be examined late in January. Must remember to enter that on the calendar sheet.

Anyway, the tree is up and peacefully drinking its water and not shedding. Much. I have not managed to kill my beautiful poinsettia by either over or underwatering it. Yet. My creche is up. Pluses. On the minus side, the downstairs bedroom is covered in storage boxes and I have yet to set up the wrapping station or wrap a single gift. In fact, I have more of this item to buy. Gifts, not wrap. And inspiration is in as short supply as feelings of holly jolliness. Scrooge and me, best buds for the season. Adding a note here that the wrapping station is now ready and three presents (wow) are wrapped and under the tree.

On the other hand, the bank account is in good shape and I can write l holiday cheques for dearest if not nearest. I always loved to get money at Christmas so that I could hit the sales and pick up stuff that I had been craving but would not let myself purchase at full price. You know, I sort of laugh at my daughters’ economical natures, but I have to admit that they are chips off the old blockhead. When they were teenagers they used to grab me and haul me bodily past sale tables. Now we all stop and run an eye over bargains.

The cards I wrote this year were purchased late last December. I have been known to buy gifts through the year when the price was right, hide them and forget either that I bought them or where I hid them.  As a relatively young woman, I did that. Never have had a good memory for necessary stuff. I once lost my car keys for months; they came to light in my summer raincoat pocket when I got it out of storage the next spring. However, I can remember yards of the poetry I learned as a girl, lots of the words of songs, and other bits and pieces. I recite at odd times and get odd glances. Note added here that I just found one and wrapped it. A gift, not a car key. Or a poem.

If foggy, proceed with care. At least the colander is useful.

Never Say Never

 

I have a rather beautiful dining room table. It opens out and leaves can be added to suit the number of diners. At full stretch, with two leaves in it, it seats ten. Because the wood is so pretty, I cherish it. I put on a ‘silencer’, a pad that fits, under a tablecloth if I have guests. And so I have acquired three sizes of tablecloths and underpads, for the closed size, seating four, the single leaf, seating six, and the full size, seating ten or twelve. The photo shows the table at full length but with only three chairs to the side. Four people on each side is quite comfortable, with two smaller chairs added to what you see.

I have hardly ever needed, over the thirty years we have had this table, to seat ten, and for many years I only had one tablecloth to fit the full size, a dark green that worked for Christmas but was okay all year. A few years ago I bought a lovely silver one for Christmas and decided that I would only need it. I gave the underpad to the YD to protect her beautiful centre counter and did something, I have now no idea what, with the green tablecloth.

This last weekend we were visited by two of JG’s nieces, with spouses and one daughter, to visit with our daughters and with us. My wonderful and highly skilled YD volunteered to cater for this visit. If you follow the count, there were ten people to feed. And so we dug the second leaf for the table out from under the bed where it lives, collecting dust and lint, cleaned it, and installed it. I messaged the YD to ask for a loan back of the underpad. But, where was the green tablecloth? The silver Christmas cloth would not do.  I had no idea about the location of the green one. No memory of what happened to it at all. It is quite possible that in a fit of tidying, I gave it away.

I spent a fruitless time searching every drawer and shelf where I thought it might have gone. No green tablecloth. Muttering, I dug out the next biggest one I own and found that it covered the table with no drape at the ends but would have to do. I have cutlery for twelve and plates for that many, so no problem there, and it was not very noticeable that the cloth did not quite cover. Except to me.

My wonderful YD planned, sourced and cooked the meal in my kitchen, with some help from the daughter of the younger niece. This lovely young woman is studying at Queen’s and is on a placement in Ottawa, staying with the YD. It seemed to the nieces to be a good time to visit, seeing her and us at the same time. They had a fraught and snowy trip from the Big City, but made it intact. And the YD arrived with a car full of food, soup, fish and all the trimmings, plus ‘starters’.

She and the daughter prepped, cooked and served a delicious meal. I contributed one pie for dessert. After the meal I found the ED in the kitchen. She had loaded the dishwasher right up to its maximum and was handwashing the residue. Other than the pie, I did nothing. I sat and visited with the family while the whole thing was rolled out, perfectly. I don’t think that at my best I could ever have done it, solo, with such panache.

The menu? Squash soup, two kinds of fish – salmon and whitefish – with baby potatoes, vegetables and trimmings, apple pie and ice cream. And a whole pile of shrimp and two kinds of cheese ahead of this feast. All cooked perfectly.

So, the ‘never’? I will not ever, (oops) tell myself that I will never need something again. Because, as sure as paint, an occasion will arise … yeah.