Sunday roast: chicken; the usual supper (soup and sandwiches)
I hate it when changes happen without previous warning, but I must admit that that does at least cut down on my habit of slightly mournfully tracking lasts: the last cooked breakfast (unless I can get my soon-to-be new carer to arrive early one day and make me one), the last time I can sit and read quietly without one ear pricked for mum calling me, the last time I give my breakfast order for the next day to an HCA and watch them try to remember my order while wondering what I’m actually going to get…1
And, of course, the last roast dinner before Christmas, and the last for some time that I don’t have to at least partly cook myself. That “someone else made it” is a delicious seasoning that brightens up even meals that would otherwise be just OK, like today’s roast chicken lunch.
I will start by recording my sincere thanks to HCA O for removing the cauliflower from my plate before bringing it to me, as I once again forgot to ask her to ask the kitchen not to serve me any.
What I did get was a nice piece of chicken thigh meat, which I always prefer to white meat, broccoli (probably the last time for a while I’ll have that, as mum doesn’t like it and it’s not generally worth doing two separate lots of veg), the usual single piece of parsnip, a dome of somewhat undercooked stuffing (the clagginess of the texture didn’t stop me eating it, but did stop me eating it on its own), and five good roast potatoes which were almost crispy on the outside.
There was also gravy, although not as much as I would have liked as for once it wasn’t the creamy-savoury-indefinably-flavoured gravy I have got used to over the past few weeks but instead a proper, glossy chicken gravy.
Dessert was banana Angel Delight, which I discovered on my first Sunday here was not at all to my taste, so I skipped it and instead had a date and walnut flapjack from my (now nearly empty) private stock.
Then, after the aforementioned afternoon of reading quietly, interspersed with three or four phone calls from mum asking what time I’ll be home tomorrow (I don’t know, I say each time, but I’ll find out tomorrow morning and let you know: that answer doesn’t stay in her head for long, though, and a few minutes or hours later she calls again to ask the same question), it was time for my last supper2 here.
So, for the last time:
Soup: cream of mushroom. Looked mushroomy, had bits of mushroom in it, tasted like every creamy vegetable soup I’ve had over the past few weeks, and I suspect I’m genuinely going to miss that.
Sandwiches: ham (good ham, too, not the cheap, wafer thin stuff they usually have); corned beef and pickle (both are on my post-return-home shopping list).
Crisps: prawn cocktail flavour, not in the photo because I forgot to put them on the table; I don’t think anyone needs to be shown what a packet of crisps looks like, though.
Yoghurt: strawberry, also on my shopping list.
Decaff coffee: ditto (about being on my shopping list, not about being strawberry flavoured, although as a teen I went through a stage where iced raspberry lattes were my coffee shop drink of choice: I’ve always been an adventurous eater / drinker, although I’m not sure I would want that particular adventure these days).
And that was my last full day in residential medical care. By this time tomorrow I will be home, and probably just about to eat my supper, as I don’t usually eat on the stroke of 5pm. I don’t know what I’ll have, but if it’s soup and sandwiches y’all have permission to yell at me in the comments for my lack of imagination!
- Last time this happened I asked for Weetabix with hot milk and got bran flakes with cold milk. The HCA who brought me breakfast offered to take it back and swap it, but I decided to try bran flakes and see if I still like them. And I do: for a healthy cereal they’re surprisingly tasty, in a subtle sort of way. ↩︎
- Not The Last Supper: to the best of my knowledge none of da Vinci’s great works include any corned beef sandwiches. ↩︎
Is it pineapple sponge today? 