Vegetable and cashew noodle stirfry with teriyaki salmon
Today wasn’t a good day but, before I get to that, here are the titular grapes (no Photoshop, and my hands are small but not unusually so):
They taste OK, but the novelty is the sheer size of the things: some of them need to be eaten in two bites (if you’re being polite, anyway). They weren’t any particular variety – I just ordered standard grapes – and I didn’t notice they were special until mum pointed it out. (And yes, I thoroughly appreciate how sad it is that oversize fruit is the highlight of my day.)
My day once again started earlier than I would have liked, with mum knocking on my bedroom door, near tears with pain. I told her to take some painkillers and try to get some more sleep, which she did, but it didn’t help and she eventually gave a reluctant nod when I asked if she wanted me to call the doctor. Like many older people, she hates “bothering” the doctor so it I know she’s really suffering when she lets me call them.
Many hours later, after mum had started feeling better, I finally got the requested callback from the duty GP, who booked mum in for an appointment tomorrow morning.
Then, of course, I had to work out how to get us there: none of mum’s friends with cars were answering their phones, and mum was in sufficient pain that the ambling local bus service was utterly unappealing to her. After a very long afternoon, with lots of tears and panic (from mum) and increasingly hollow reassurances (from me), I managed to track down a friend who can give us a lift tomorrow morning, as long as the surgery is running to time as she has to be elsewhere by lunchtime.
The whole kerfuffle has convinced me of what many of you have been telling me for a while: I need help. So once mum’s feeling a bit better I will make a phone call to the local branch of Age UK (much to mum’s disgust, I have no doubt: her indignant “I’m not a little old lady” always makes me laugh inappropriately) and beg for their help.
It won’t be tomorrow, though, as mum’s sister and my cousins will be coming to clear out my late grandmother’s house, and I will have to hobble across on my crutches to represent our interests and stop them throwing away / walking off with anything mum or I would like to keep or donate to a local charity. Please don’t be surprised if there’s no post tomorrow: I strongly suspect I will be exhausted before the day’s even half done.
Dinner tonight was meant to be homemade pizza, but a) I was too tired to do it, and b) mum spotted the tray of stirfry veg mix and said it looked nice so, as she hasn’t been eating much, I took advantage of the cue1 to get some food into her.
With it I served teriyaki salmon skewers, as mum doesn’t generally care for fish but loves salmon: I’m not keen on it, personally, but I try to buy and serve what mum likes, and in terms of fish, that’s salmon. Except for today, apparently, when she doesn’t like “pink fish”. She took some when I looked disappointed / frustrated, though, and ate nearly all of it (I knew she liked it really!). I had one skewer, to show willing, and discovered once again that pretty much anything is edible if you coat it in enough tasty sauce!
[The noodles, if you’re interested, were simply boiled then thrown into the frying pan with the nearly cooked veg and some soy sauce, then a handful of salted cashews added in the last 30 seconds. It’s ridiculously delicious for something so simple.]
The same might be said for me as, while applying the sauce to the cooked fish – without taking the baking tray out of the oven, because I’m lazy and an idiot – I caught my finger on the side of the oven, jerked away reflexively, and splashed teriyaki sauce up my arm, from where it took three washes and a good scrub with an exfoliating cloth to remove. Teriyaki Cat won’t now be on anyone’s menu, sorry.
A brief addendum: a few minutes ago, mum came into the living room where I’m sitting, and said “can I ask you something? I’ve been trying to work it out and can’t: are you my daughter?”
đ
- As in a stage cue, not the snooker sort, although one of the good things about not being able to work is that I get to watch plenty of sport. âŠī¸
Is it pineapple sponge today? 