BBQ tandoori chicken with Bombay wedges and salad; chocolate pudding with caramel ice cream

Today started with a small but un-ignorable irritation, like a tiny stone in a very large shoe, when this morning’s carer cheerily ignored mum’s repeated attempts to ask a perfectly rational and understandable question and, instead of answering, gave her vague reassurances that she would be back tomorrow.

Mum eventually gave up and came to get me, so I could repeat the same question a few more times before finally getting the carer to stop reassuring long enough to actually listen to what we were saying. Sigh.

Maybe, though, that irritation was what pushed mum into being better than she has been in ages, active and aware, and remembering to check her little pieces of paper when struggling for a word. I watched her scrolling effortlessly through the contacts list on her phone, confirming she has numbers for all her friendsand, after too many times seeing her unsure what her phone was even for, had to give my rather bemused mother a hug .

In that mood mum was happy to invite round a family friend who she swore just yesterday she would never speak to again as she was so embarrassed that she had the friendship slip while she was unwell. I was very glad she had changed her mind until said friend commented that she thought I had lost weight and it had made me pretty. 😲😬 All the ensuing apologies that that wasn’t how she meant it to come out aren’t enough to make me forgive the insult.¹

By this time it was time for me to start preparing dinner, another Simply Cook box – I won’t provide another promotional link this time as my review isn’t going to be that complimentary.

The kit came with a pot of chilli powder and one of tandoori paste for the chicken, and a third pot of “Bombay spice” for what should have been sweet potato wedges but were instead normal potato as mum doesn’t like sweet potato (I’m not that keen myself, unless it’s in soup form). There were a lot of wedges as it was a BIG potato, and they were rather irregular in shape and size because it was a big potato, and I had a small knife and an even smaller amount of feeling in my fingers².

The wedges, after all that effort, tasted of not very much, while the chicken was too spicy for mum even though I used less than half of the chilli powder. (I’ve saved the rest to use in some future dish, naturally.) I liked the flavour, but not enough for me to put this box on my reorder list.

Then mum suggested we have a hot pudding from our little stash in the kitchen cupboard, and who am I to refuse?

Mum had a golden syrup sponge with vanilla ice cream, while I had chocolate sponge with caramel ice cream, which I now very much wish I had ordered more of. Maybe I can ask mum to get me more when she next plucks up the courage to venture into Tesco in search of her beloved coffee ice cream, in exchange for the homemade jam sponge pudding I’ve promised for dessert tomorrow. And the meals I’ve made every other day since I got home, even if she doesn’t remember most of them.

She remembered today, though, and that’s enough to make me happy for today.

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1. I’m joking, of course, which I feel the need to clarify particularly if she followed the link to this blog. If so: hi. 👋 ↩︎
2. Was it irresponsible to use a knife while having reduced sensation in my hands? Yes, yes it was, and I would strongly recommend against doing the same. ↩︎