Masks and marmalade

I’ve calmed down a little after the mask announcement – I’m still spitting blood but, having thought it through with a slightly cooler head, I’ve drawn a line to which I am prepared to go… but I will go NO further. 

The line: I will shop for fresh food essentials in between supermarket deliveries (grateful as I am to Sainsbury’s, we get through so much fruit, veg and salad that a delivery once a week just isn’t enough), I will not wear a mask – I will wear a scarf and I will not, under any circumstances, shop in person for anything other than food. I don't feel good about compromising my principles, I feel I'm letting myself down, but for food shopping it’s the only sensible thing to do. God... it rankles, though.

I shopped this morning for milk, bread, eggs and fresh stuff – buns may also have accidentally fallen into my trolley! I didn’t see any customers without a mask… except me, I'm proud to say! I took a few sideways looks from the masked sheeple but no-one had the balls to say anything to me. Next week I’ll wear a scarf… this week I wasn’t required to, so I didn’t. Simple.

Sickens me to see sheeple online wittering about how best to make a mask, how ‘attractive’ they can be in different colours, posting pictures of ‘me in my mask’ and being told “Oooh, nice mask”… worst  of all, being thrilled about how a mask allows them to get back to ‘normal’. Normal? Normal..?! Are you completely mad? Before Covid, did you wear a bloody mask to go and buy a pint of milk? No, of course you didn’t, you brainless lump, so how the hell is this normal?!

If High St shops are going along with this nonsense and not allowing customers in without a mask, then they have only themselves to blame if their businesses go belly up.

Boris came up with another load of drivel at the end of last week – I don’t know all the details; I ignore most of it now. Until such time as he tells me I can hug my son and grandchildren… I’m not interested. The mere fact that I have to wait for permission to do something so human, so ordinary, makes me want to weep.

News from the kitchen: Having finally managed to procure some bicarb, I made Nigella’s Marmalade Pudding Cake that I mentioned previously. It wasn’t the prettiest, as you can see, but the flavour and texture were lovely.

Anyway, looks aren’t important when it’s smothered in custard! It was very moist, orangey and spongy. I don’t think it’d work terribly well as an actual cake, although I'm willing to give it a whirl, but it was very nice as a pud – I’ll definitely make it again, maybe with some lemon marmalade that I made a few weeks ago. I halved the recipe for justthe two of us - it's not that we wouldn't eat it all, it's more the fact that we would!

We seem to have been living on plates of roast veg and griddled halloumi recently, it’s my new favourite summer meal. It’s quick and easy, plus any leftovers get made into an oven-baked frittata, which is probably my second favourite meal du jour. Win, win!