But What To Eat...Bit Of A Problem Sometimes...

Eating can be a real problem...cooking is almost beyond me now 'cos I can't really lean over the gas cooker happily stirring some interesting sauce while plugged into oxygen...that'd be silly really.

And most of the time I don't feel hungry, or if I do it's for something weird like mandarin oranges out of a tin or chocolate custard...hardly passable as nourishing food.

So mostly...in the wintertime ...I have soup. Homemade soup mind you...leeks and carrots...onions and celery with a handful of chopped fresh parsley...then some added pasta or rice...or my favourite...dumplings!

I sometimes add beans...not baked beans...but red kidney beans or chickpeas...loads of protein in them...who needs dead pig when you can eat beans, unless your inclined to think the beans squeal when they're picked and the leeks shriek like a banshee as they're yanked out of the soil...don't you be laughing...there are those who believe it.

It's easy to chop the veggies as well 'cos I can sit at the table in the sitting-room, plugged into the oxygen and stir the pan on the range without fear of blowing up the entire street...

And Himself can poodle about in the kitchen with pork chops or fat sausages to his heart's content without me getting in the way...I do sometimes make him the Hairy Bikers sausage casserole in the slow cooker though...that smells so delicious while it's cooking it's almost enough to turn me into a meat eater...another recipe for the slow cooker is pork and plums...it needs millions of ingredients, but it's seriously good, especially if you have people coming.

It has the advantage of looking as though you've spent hours in the kitchen as well...

A big pot of soup will last me several days if it's kept in the 'fridge...some garlic bread to go with it and either fresh fruit or a yoghurt for pudding. Sorted.

I do find food to be a bit of a problem actually...if we ever won the Lotto the very first thing I'd do is to employ a cook...the bliss of not having to think about what to eat or what to cook...to just be told the meal was ready and to sit down and eat, without having to have cooked or prepared it would be heaven.

Never used to be like that...when we were looking after our people I'd write out a weekly menu and then follow it almost to the letter...a main course and always a pudding...sometimes we'd have a late supper, depending on whether the chaps had been out at a social evening or not...I used to enjoy cooking food they'd like, it was all a part and parcel of what we did and who we were. There were always cakes in tins as well, to have a slice of when everyone came home from school and the Training Centre...a slice of cake and a mug of tea...sippy cups of tepid tea for the little girls though.

But now I struggle to make a cauliflower cheese for myself...