Sleep Interrupted

One of the upsides of parenting is chocolate milk. Before we had kids, chocolate milk was just not something I did. Now it’s a weekly event and it’s great!

So, today I decided to conduct an experiment and made a cup of tea using chocolate milk. This seemed like a perfectly reasonable combination. You know, tea’s good, chocolate’s good and more importantly some chocolate with a cup of tea is good, so… chocolate in tea must be good, no?

I think we can write this one off as a failure. Planned experiments with strawberry and banana milk have been cancelled at this time.

Louise is away at the moment, visiting her aunt, uncle and cousin down in Devon. This makes me solely responsible for the children for a whole two days, which is a rare experience. So far so good, though.

This morning I took the children to do the weekly grocery shopping. We left fairly early to beat the rush, which wasn’t hard seeing that they’d been awake since 6.30 with me following (inevitably) shortly after.

We rocked out to some Kings Of Leon on the way. Later, Ben asked if he could buy the same “music stick” as me when he grew up. I asked him why and he said it was so that it could have cool music like mine on it. Go the Kings!

We drove through the now-characteristic British summer weather — grey skies and light rain — and easily found a spot in the car park. This was when I realised that I’d forgotten the carefully prepared shopping list. Oh well, I thought, I’ll wing it and probably won’t forget too much.

My… god! I hate shopping. Louise normally coordinates our shopping activities. If I’m in attendance, it’s more as mobile child minder and high shelf reacher than as an active shopper.

This time I had to make all the choices myself. Now, if I didn’t care about Issues then this would have been easy. But Fair Trade and Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fernley Bloody Eats-It-All have done too good a job at educating me to the plight of farmers and chickens and the environment in general, so now I have to think about everything I purchase.

Is that chicken from the UK? Is it farm assured? Where have those apples come from? What?! I can’t get apples from the UK? Oh, maybe that’s right: seasonal. So how far have these ones come from? Brazil?! New Zealand?! So, which of those is further? Can you get Fair Trade apples? Argh!

And don’t even get me started on China. Here’s a little challenge: Go into any homeware section of a supermarket and find something made somewhere other than China.

Now that last paragraph might sound a little xenophobic and I would be lying if I said that wasn’t a component of the sentiment — I don’t like the thought of our country being beholden to another entirely alien culture on the other side of the planet. But… is it really right that a large proportion of the goods purchased in this country are shipped from halfway around the world from a country that has such differing standards to us when it comes to environmental concerns and civil liberties? People often ask “how can they make these so cheap?”– there is an explanation but I don’t expect they want to hear it.

So, I’ve managed to spiral this post from something cheery and life-affirming into a bitter rant on the injustices of the world. Perhaps I shouldn’t write at this time of night but it is kind of how I feel right now… I learnt about stagflation today. Yeah, the future’s looking bloody marvelou right now.

Whilst looking for a recipe for pumpkin soup, I came across this website. Understandably it is the first hit on Google, but what made me smile was that it appears the site originally was not a lot to do with pumpkin soup at all, but after frequent visitors looking for soup recipes, there are now some on there. How cool is that?

It also made me chuckle that that the busiest time of year for site traffic is around Halloween, and with people looking for recipes. I hate being predictable.

Personally, I just think Tim’s chicken.

Tiredness. I’m tired. I should probably be in bed. Why am I tired? I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps it’s because I now get to look after the children solo for a few hours at the weekend while Louise is at work. Or perhaps it’s the after effects of those cocktails last night. (Aside: I really don’t like Campari. At all. Way too bitter. I really want to take a test to see if I’m a supertaster; I certainly fit the profile.)

(Another aside: The wind started to pick up a few minutes ago and blew over some of our milk bottles, so Louise and I have had a fun time crawling under our cars with torch and broom. Not feeling so tired right now.)

We’re planning to go and see Casino Royale on Wednesday evening. Tim W seems to rate it; Mark less so. I’m still hoping to see The Prestige, given it’s relation to Batman Begins and Tim S’ recommendation. However, I don’t think our babysitter quota will stretch far enough. So, Tim, it’s not Borat but can I interest you in some Bond? (I was going to write Bondage there but I hear double entendres went out with Brosnan.)

Phew, what a scorcher! Here’s a great non-alcoholic cocktail for a hot evening: The Grenadine Rickey. To half a glass of ice add 30ml grenadine and 10ml fresh lime juice, then top up with 180ml soda water and stir. You can substitute lemon for the lime to create a slightly sharper and more refreshing variation.

When I first tried this out yesterday I wasn’t too hopeful but Louise and I liked it so much we had to have one again tonight.

When it got properly hot a couple of weeks ago I suddenly realised what was missing — a decent long drink for a hot summer night. That’s when I decided to learn about cocktails.

Enthusiastically assisted by Louise, we now have some of the basics: A cocktail shaker, a basic book on cocktails, limes by the dozen, mint, homemade sugar syrup, soda water, vodka, gin, tequilla, Bacardi, Cointreau… so many ingredients to buy, so many cocktails to try!

So, what have we learned so far? We first tried Mohitos (due to a reference on Lost) and they’re a good thirst quencher, although I think the recipe we used might be improved on. Long Island Ice Teas are the complete opposite, totally brutal. I found it just too strong following the single-shot-of-coke recipe, so I used a half can instead and it became passable but certainly not refined.

Tequilla Sunrises… I can’t recall much of the specifics other than the orangeness and being disapointed that the grenadine didn’t float on the top like the picture in the book. I blame this fuziness of recollection on the preceeding Long Island Ice Tea.

Margaritas and Daiquiris are quite similar in delivering a superb limey punch. Of the two I definitely prefer the Daiquiri — possibly perfection — but I did have to use 50/50 lime/lemon as we ran out of limes; perhaps I’ve invented something!