Men aren't meant to match, apparently. I was told by a lady in Melrose last week that I was guilty of over-accessorising.
I think she felt that a lime green turban with a lime green sweatshirt and lime green trainers was a co-ordination too far. She berated me, saying that while it was fine for a woman to stylishly connect her handbag and shoes or hat and shoes, tights
and scarf, apparently it was a fashion faux pas for a man to do the same. It seemed to me that she was green with envy.
A shaggy Lab story There is a saying that truth is stranger than fiction. I have to confess that as an occasional writer of fiction this cliché irritates me no end, as it is oft used as a justification for not accepting my work. However, having heard a true story from my old schoolfriend Siobhan, I have been absolutely forced to reappraise my approach to the truth/fiction coefficient.
It starts when a dog-owning lassie leaves her non-dog-owning boyfriend with her mutt to tend to and love while she grabs a much-needed, hugely anticipated week in the sun. The first two days pass with no alarms and no surprises. The dog is walked. The dog is fed. The dog is played with. On day three the dog is walked. The dog is fed. And then the dog is dead. Properly dead. With no advanced warning or any suggestion of an imminent catastrophe, not so much as a sneeze or a sniffle. The dog is dead. We have a dead dog.
Panicked, the boyfriend has no idea what to do. I mean, does anyone without prior experience know the protocol in the matter of an expired pooch? He phones a friend. They agree that there is no point alerting the owner since it would only ruin her holiday. The boyfriend suggests a hole in the garden and a fitting stone memorial on the freshly turned earth. The friend feels this is inappropriate. She advises him to take the canine corpse to a vet for safekeeping until the girlfriend returns. Then arrangements can me made, and her grieving can begin. Not sure how best to transport the large, lifeless Labrador to the train station to catch the train to the vet, our hero decides to bundle the body into a massive suitcase. He struggles his way to the station, too tight-fisted to fork out for a cab. At the station he struggles to take the suitcase upstairs and over the bridge to the designated platform. A kindly onlooker offers to help. It transpires that this kindly stranger is coincidentally travelling to the same station.
The Samaritan takes one end of the suitcase and is astonished at the weight of it. "What you got in here?" He asks our friend. Obviously the answer "a dead dog" would have been bizarre and unhelpful at this stage. "Decks" replies our harassed hero. "I'm a DJ and I've got a gig tonight so these are my turntables". Feasible enough, I think we can all concur. They make it over the bridge and on to a train. The gents sit together, the case safely stowed in the luggage hole near the door. Our hero, exhausted by his travails, finds himself dozing off, the rocking motion on the train soothing him into sleep.
He awakes with a jolt as the train pulls into the station before his required stop. He looks round to see that his helpful Samaritan friend is no longer by his side. As the train pulls out of the station he looks out the window to see the Samaritan dragging the case down the platform. Clearly he thought he'd managed to steal a couple of highly prized DJ decks. Oh, to have been there when he clicked open the locks and lifted the lid…
Fruity riposte to meat 'n' two vegThe fruit-with-meat food debate is a constant cause of consternation for foodophiles and a fair few foodphobics. Whether it's apple and pork on a Sunday afternoon, lamb and prunes in a hearty tagine or turkey and cranberry in a cheeky wee lunchtime sandwich. The debate raged further still last week when I had the gall to serve a cold duck breast salad with not one but two fruits. The perfectly pink breasts were thinly sliced and strewn over a bed of pea tops, parsley, mint, salad onions, grapefruit and pomegranate. I realise that this could have been a fatal food flaw. The fruit might, just might have made the overall salad a symphony of sweetness rather than a bowl of balanced flavours. Luckily neither the grapefruit nor the pomegranate were too sweet. (If anything they could both have been a little sweeter). The grapefruit offered that citrus tang that cuts through the deep, fatty richness of the duck; the pomegranates like grenades of exploding flavour releasing their juice in and around the herby ensemble. It was more meat and two fruit than meat and two veg.
It's her birthday party, she can cry if she wants toOne of my oldest and best pals turned 40 last Friday. She came into town for a few days and I thought it would be lovely to throw a bijou party-type gathering for her. Unfortunately she wasn't so keen. Having turned 40 myself six months back I understand her reluctance to go public. It's just a number, yet everyone feels the need to either console you or try to cheer you up whilst telling you that life begins at this point. Her philosophical objection to celebrating her birthday poses some unique challenges when trying to invite her friends round to join us for dinner.
Suffice to say that the secret lasted barely into the first course. I'm afraid I folded and gave her a present. Surprisingly she wasn't angry. I think the joy she saw in all our faces made her realise that her birthday was more than just about her; it was the opportunity for us to express our friendship towards her. That and to eat cake. Everyone loves cake.
