New Yorker toastie, fries, oat milk latte
Today has been less than brilliant: this morning I got up to make coffee, caught my toe on the rug, and hit the floor hard. I sprained my ankle, and have spent the day trying to keep my foot elevated.
Mum has, as you would, taken this less than contendedly, getting increasingly irritated / distressed every time I told her that she had her glasses 30 seconds ago, and if she’s lost them again then she’ll just have to cope without them as I’m not getting up again to look for them.
(After an afternoon of disconsolate sobbing and “I don’t understand, I’m so scared”, I found the ‘missing’ glasses on the sofa next to her. “Oh, these? Yes, I know”, she said. 🙄)
Now my ankle is swollen up like a balloon, so here’s a quick review of yesterday’s trip out to The View Café at St Helens, right over in the east of the Island.
The café is, as you can see, well named: there is indeed a very lovely view from inside and out. To get said view, you have to climb a flight of steps to the front door, so I’m glad I didn’t fall yesterday.
Orders are meant to be taken at the counter, but the nice staff member… well, it wasn’t table service, as she stayed at the counter, but she didn’t require me to get up and go to the counter, which is what matters.
I had an oat milk latte
and a New Yorker toastie, which was toasted sourdough filled with pastrami – properly peppery – with gherkins, mustard, and lots of cheese. The only bad thing I can say about it is that a drippy toastie and a cowl-neck jumper aren’t a good combination for purposes of staying clean!
Then I went to see the flat, which I was already thinking was too far from mum, although I could have been persuaded if I had really liked the flat. I did like 90% of the flat – big rooms, good decorative order, fantastic wet-room – but the 10% was the kitchen, which was so tiny I couldn’t have open the oven if I put my perching stool in there.
The lettings agent said, with some resignation, that everyone who has seen the flat has said the kitchen is too small, and asked what cut in monthly rent it would take for me to take the place. If cooking wasn’t both my main hobby and the main source of content for this blog then I might have been tempted to negotiate, but as it is I had to disappoint the agent and say no.
With my ankle swelled up to twice its normal size, I wasn’t in the mood to do anything complicated for dinner: thankfully we had a grocery delivery today so the fridge is well-stocked with things that can be microwaved or ovened. Not exciting, but perfectly pleasant.
Tomorrow we finally – finally! – have someone coming to fix our broken boiler. It’s amazing how quickly they managed to acquire the necessary part when I threatened to take our custom elsewhere and ask for mum’s money back: a mere couple of hours, in fact, which makes me wonder what stopped them doing it earlier. I will have to be up early to let them in, as mum won’t do it, but it will be worth it for the sake of a long overdue hot shower.
So tomorrow I will be back, hopefully less chilly around the extremities. 🤞
