Roast chicken thighs, Mediterranean veg, and roast potatoes; chocolate fudge cake and ice cream
I’m writing this first part of my post in a rare moment alone in the house, with just a baking cake and televised snooker for company. The friend we were meant to be going to lunch with came to visit, bringing leftover roast lamb and some lemon meringue pie (and how I wish my citrus allergy didn’t prevent me from eating that pie!), then took mum out for a walk. I was invited along, to sit in the car while they walk but, in partnership with the leftovers, it made me feel too much like an inconvenient pet dog and opted to stay at home and keep watch over the cooking cake.
While mum got ready for the unscheduled walk, the friend and I had a quick chat, where she recommended I talk to the local social prescriber about getting some help, particularly with transport, as (to paraphrase, as I can’t remember her exact words) “we [mum’s church friends] don’t mind driving occasionally but we can’t keep doing it: we have lives of our own!”
She’s not wrong, of course, but it felt like a tacit acknowledgement that I now don’t have a life, or at least not one outside being mum’s carer.
I’m probably coming across as whiny, and I fully acknowledge that I’m feeling quite sorry for myself today, not helped by mum repeatedly talking about what we’ll do “when we’re better”, when in all likelihood I’m never going to get better, so I’ll stop there and go and check on my cake, which is smelling quite delicious.
Three(ish) hours later…
Mum came back from her walk happy but tired, and tired means confused, but the friend had left by then1 and didn’t have to repeatedly explain the concept of “church is next week”, and then what a week was, and yes, church is where you go with your friends, and yes, someone will come and get you, but not until next week, and “what’s a week?”, and so on, and on, and on…
Rather than the leftovers of someone else’s Sunday roast (not that I’m turning my nose up at it: it will save me cooking tomorrow!), I marinated some chicken thighs in vaguely BBQ-y sauce of oil, smoked paprika, honey, vinegar, and seasoning (how much of each? I don’t know – some?) and roasted them with Mediterranean veg and some frozen roast potatoes. Mum made no comment on it, but ate it all except for half of one piece of chicken, which would have been chilled with the rest for lunch tomorrow, except my fingers refused to cooperate and it leapt onto the floor. 🤦♂️
Now, to the strains of Handel’s2 Messiah, I am resting after doing the washing up, which mum is currently redoing as I apparently didn’t do it well enough (quite a lot of my neuroses come from the fact that nothing I have ever done is quite good enough for my mother), and will then go and get a bit of my chocolate cake – I want a bit, even if mum doesn’t.
I’ll post a photo below, to act as a conclusion to this post.
Is it pineapple sponge today? 