We are trying to use up everything in the fridge and freezer before we go shopping again.
The idea is that we empty everything out and have lots of clean space to refill with nice things for Christmas and when the children come home. This seems to me to be good and sensible. Also we are flat broke at the moment and so it is a very practical way of maximising our assets until we win the Lottery. We will have to win the lottery before we go shopping because driving taxis is only minimally profitable at the moment. I have been here for hours and hours and so far I have made a fiver.
The downside of this resolution is that it has resulted in some very peculiar dinners.
I have just eaten Chinese prawns with hash browns and cheese and onion pie and a side order of pickled onions. All of these things were perfectly pleasant and acceptable but it is not the sort of dish one might expect to find in a decent restaurant, or even, if I am honest, a crap restaurant.
We have been eating like this for several days already, and yet mysteriously the freezer does not seem to be getting any emptier. This has led to an upsurge in my personal self-knowledge. I have learned that I am the sort of person who purchases lamb leg joints, tuna fillets, whole chickens and sliced duck. This is all very well but I have also learned that we are the sort of household that only ever eats sausages and pizza.
We do not have any sausages or pizzas left any more, and are contemplating the concept of having Quorn Nuggets In Batter for breakfasts. There is nothing left of our usual fare. We have eaten all of the cheese, all of the tomatoes and all of the lettuce, although there is a solitary pepper left in the bottom drawer of the fridge, probably growing mould as I write. It will have to be used up soon, and tomorrow’s dinner is likely to be Vegetarian Pate sandwiches with sliced pepper and a slight hint of mycotoxin.
Despite this there may be a flickering light at the end of the tunnel. This afternoon I can announce that the lettuces in the conservatory drainpipe have actually started to grow already. We have tiny seedlings sprouting under the solar-powered lights, so in a few weeks we will be able to eat green things again. If we get desperate we can cut them straight away and pretend they are cress.
Also, I am very pleased to say that the new Westmorland FU council has unexpectedly decided to increase taxi fares. We are all entirely astonished about this, but it turns out that it is because we are not South Lakeland any more. We have a new council, and Windermere is now associated with geographical areas which house real working class people, who have elected a robust selection of Conservative and Labour representatives to speak for them. It appears that the Conservatives have been putting their oar in on behalf of the small businessman, and the Labour on behalf of the Common Man, and the Liberal Democrat chap who inexplicably has been elected to represent Windermere has been over-ruled.
I am very glad about this and hope that nobody talks to him in the coffee break because he is a Rotter and ignores all of my letters, apart from one that he once answered telling me that he was too busy too be troubled at the moment. I would have torn it to shreds in a fit of bitter fury if it had not been an email.
It will be ages before the new fare increase turns up, but turn up it will, and it may mean that we do not starve to death before the winter. Man cannot live by lettuce alone.
Perhaps we won’t have to.
