Sweet and hot prawns, stirfry veg, garlic bread; mince pies with cream

I realised at some point today that the meal I had on my meal plan for tonight called for a large bag of cherry tomatoes, and we had already eaten most of the ones from the most recent grocery order. This meant that the pot of cream required for the same meal was surplus to requirements, and of course mum and I immediately started thinking of things – mostly sweet things – to do with it.

I decided on mince pies (not many left now 😥), but rather over-estimated how long they would take to heat in the microwave. After about 20 seconds, there was a distinct “pop”, and I opened the microwave door to find the pressure of the hot mincemeat had blown the lid of one of the pies off its base, spraying hot spiced sugar across the inside of the microwave which mum cleaned only a few days ago. Oops.

Mum has had a fairly active day today, too, getting out in the garden to start cutting back and pruning off various bits of dead plants. It is a quiet joy to see her back to doing something I know she loves but that she hasn’t done in too long.

For me, the highlight of my day was saying goodbye to Zelda the zimmer frame, who was taken away to find a new owner as I have barely used her (it) since I got home. In her / its place I received the long-overdue shower stool, so I am looking forward to a shower tomorrow or, if I don’t get time between appointments tomorrow, on Wednesday. Having not had a shower since I was in the care home (I have washed, obviously, just not under a shower head), I’m rather looking forward to it.

And so, looping back pretty much to where I started, because this post is a bit all over the place, to dinner. The hot and sweet prawns were from Tesco and a new thing, so I wasn’t sure how hot they were going to be. As mum isn’t a fan of spicy things I cooked some of her favourite sticky chicken skewers so she could have those instead if the prawns proved too much for her.

As they did: mum ate part of one prawn and said it was hot but OK, put some on her plate, then decided after eating a couple of whole ones that they were just too spicy. Fwiw, I thoroughly enjoyed them: the spice was noticeable but pleasant, as was the sweetness, and the prawns inside the breading were big, juicy, and tasty. The accompanying veg was the same frozen stuff as yesterday, but in rather larger quantity, and cooked more easily as I threw some water in the pan and boiled the veg rather than frying it, which rather undermines the point of it being stirfry veg but solves the icy broccoli problem.

The garlic bread was typical of the frozen supermarket variety, being crunchy on top and buttery in the middle, underpowered on the garlic, and unequally cut so there was a large piece at the end with no garlic butter at all. It was still good, though, as garlic bread generally is.

And so, after a brief interlude of locating something mum couldn’t find despite me telling her exactly where it was (and I now have a lot of sympathy with my mum for undoubtedly having to deal with this regularly when I was a kid), to bed, or at least to my bedroom while mum goes to bed. The bedroom looks oddly empty now Zelda has gone, and I’m left with one fewer surface to put things on, and for mum to get fed up with the state of and tidy up for me. Goodbye, Zelda: you were a useful thing, first as a walking aid and later as a makeshift shelf, and I hope you enjoy your new home.