Pasta with bacon, tomato and pesto sauce; berry flapjack pudding with cream

Today started well, with an early morning text from the DWP informing me that I’ve been awarded PIP, although I have to wait for the formal award letter to know how much I’m going to get. Initially I felt a bit guilty, as I woke up early, feeling good: well enough to go to work rather than continuing to lounge around at home.

By lunchtime, after I had had a shower, put away all the chilled and ambient groceries¹, and calmed mum down from a spiral of guilt and misery (she’s having one of those days when she’s much more together and aware, which means she’s aware that her head is failing her, and it breaks my f’ing heart), I was in pain, frustrated (because how can a supermarket have no eggs? And what was I going to make for dinner without the eggs I was planning on turning into a carbonara sauce?), sad, exhausted mentally and physically, and generally about ready to go back to bed and hide my head under the duvet for a while.

But I didn’t: I made myself some lunch (ham and cheese coleslaw sandwich, grapes, and a pain au chocolate that I took out of the freezer to fit something else in, then ‘forgot’ to put back²), then did some online banking for mum before settling in for some ship research. As often happens when I’m researching something, I felt frustrated that I didn’t have anything useful to show for my hours of research but, again as often happens, once I started filling out the required forms I was surprised by just how much information I had. (As well as some interesting but ultimately useless factlets, such as that the master of the ship (the man in charge: I think we would say ‘captain’ these days) got a three month equivalent of a driving ban for crashing and sinking his (very valuable) ship, basically because he’d never done it before in his 20 year career. I’m the suspicious sort, so to me the whole thing is strongly hinting at an insurance scam, although I doubt I will ever be able to prove it 200 years later even if my suspicions are justified. I’m going to try, though, and sincerely apologise to the master’s memory if I’m wrong!)

After that I should have taken advantage of all the frozen pre-prepared food we now have, but you know where I go when I have Feelings, and that’s the kitchen³. I started off with a berry flapjack pudding (frozen berries with some sugar to sweeten, topped off with a simple flapjack of melted butter, golden syrup, and porridge oats, then stuck in the oven and baked until golden on top and bubbling around the edges), then put some pasta on to cook while making a simple sauce of chopped smoked bacon, passata, cherry tomatoes, and green pesto.

Once the pasta was cooked, it went into the pan of sauce (minus the one that escaped, as one always seems to do), and dinner was served. I would have liked some parmesan to grate over the top, but that will have to go on the next grocery order list.

So that’s another day done, and done very soon unless I get better at keeping my weary eyes open. Tomorrow I have many things to do, but they’re tomorrow’s problem. Tonight I will sit here, and play games on my kindle (as I’ve used most of the phone’s remaining battery on writing this post), and do my best not to worry about things, as mum does more than enough for both of us.

See you tomorrow, all.

1. A term I remember from my long ago stint of shop work, meaning stuff that isn’t chilled or frozen. ↩︎
2. Mum complained bitterly about all the food I had bought and whether it would all fit in the freezer and cupboards (it did, albeit minus a pain au chocolate), but within an hour was listing things I should get the next time I placed a grocery order. 🙄 🤭 ↩︎
3. Some people eat their feelings: I cook mine. Then eat them. ↩︎