Coffee and cake; soup, sandwiches, and yoghurt

And so to the end of my first full day at the rehab unit / residential home. But first: cake!

Today is Children in Need Day, as all my UK-based readers are doubtless very fully aware. For those outside the UK, or living under a rock (and how I envy you), Children in Need Day is an annual charity funding drive that drives otherwise perfectly normal, sensible people to do things like cycle the length of the country, shave their head, or go around wearing a headband with two yellow bear ears on it. (A yellow bear called Pudsey being the charity’s mascot.)

As you can doubtless tell from my curmudgeonly tone, I personally find the whole thing immensely irritating, while fully appreciating and admiring the excellent work done by the charity. Therefore the invitation to a coffee and cake party in the home lounge was ideal for me: I can eat cake, show my support for the charity by dropping a few quid in the cardboard collection box, and then be done with the whole thing for another year.

So first a homemade fruit scone with cream and jam (that’s how it was served, so please don’t come at me if you’re from Devon / Cornwall and want to tell me the toppings are the wrong way round (I can’t remember which county will be upset at this, but I know it’s one of them!)).

Then a piece of cake with whipped cream and berries which I don’t think even the great Dame Mary Berry could find fault with, a cup of coffee, and some awkward small talk (well, it felt awkward to me – I’m a real introvert and rapidly get All Peopled Out and ask to be wheeled back to the privacy of my room).

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And so, finally, to supper, and the Trolley of Disappointment that was so sad (and made me so sad) yesterday.

And… it was much less sad tonight, maybe because that awkward small talk meant I got to know a few of the care staff and therefore felt a little more comfortable asking about the contents of the trolley. The fact I was still full of scone and cake, and therefore didn’t really need anything to eat, helped too.

But eating nothing doesn’t provide content, so I bravely asked for some soup, sandwiches, crisps, and a yoghurt – the lengths I go to to give my readers something to read! (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. 🤣)

The soup tonight was just ‘sweet potato’ according to the nice person pushing the trolley, but what it turned out to be was a very surprising answer to my continued curry craving. The thing I can most liken it to was eating a bowl of korma sauce, but in a very good way: creamy, sweet but not cloying, lightly fragrant with spices without being spicy. It really was a very good bit of soup, and would probably earn an honourable mention as a bit of curry, too.

I’m really sorry there’s no photos of the soup: sadly my hands have a very bad case of the shakes this evening and all of the photos I took were unusably blurry. (Note to self: check the photos BEFORE eating, not afterwards!)

But here’s the sandwiches I received, which I can just about pass off as being in soft focus rather than blurred: as you can (hopefully) see, they were filled rather more decently today, particularly the corned beef one which reminded me why I like the stuff so much. (At least 90% sheer nostalgia, I think, as it was cheap and so made a regular appearance in my packed school lunches as a kid.)

Finally a dose of morphine, as I may have pushed my body a bit too far today in my physio session, and now I’m gently floating, with the distinct feeling I’ve forgotten something important. 🤔

Ah well, I’m sure it will come to me eventually.