Since the house was finished I haven’t blogged much. Perhaps I need the therapy less, perhaps I’ve found other things to do. I hope I haven’t lost my blogging mojo, though. And that is why I’m making myself blog again.
In the absence of a house build to generate funny situations and stories, I have found that real life more than amply fills the gaps and, over the past few months I have amassed a glorious variety of ludicrous situations to share.
I’ll start with a little one from recently.
We’re driving north for Christmas with a ripe Camembert. It’s a vital part of the Christmas cheese platter (baked with honey). The Kids started making vomiting noises as soon as they got in the car. We’d only managed to make it to Sainsbury’s to fill the car with Christmas food shopping and were just about to pass home again on the way out of Glasgow when I couldn’t bear it any longer and we pulled over. It seemed it was either the Camembert’s company we’d have for Christmas or the 13 year old’s, so I started trying to locate the cheese while parked in a side street in a Glasgow suburb.
An avalanche of shopping and items packed for Christmas exploded from the boot of the car. Packing is my least favourite activity and mostly we divide labour in the family so swiss husband does the packing and I do things I’m good at like organising the trips. Adventures and holidays.
The kids pack for themselves and have done since the age of 5. There’s a few anecdotes in that… Mainly around what one does on a winter holiday with a suitcase full of toys and summer clothes and no pants or socks.
Anyway, in aid of efficiency I’d just shoved everything in. If I’d have taken the pile of wellies and trainers and a panier out and started with the boxes the pile would have been more stable. But we ended up with a load of boxes leaning outwards and bags of shopping full of bottles on the top.
Despite the mess that the contents of the boot had made on the wet, puddled road, only one bottle smashed and it was the lemon chili sauce. I picked it up and looked about for a bin. There was none to be seen and so, not knowing what else to do, I sat in the passenger seat, hands covered in chili sauce holding the remains of the sauce in the upside down bottle with the bottom broken off.
Turns out that chili sauce with lemon is an extremely effective deodorizer. And while I sat there, trying to remember not to run my eyes or put my hands near my nose or mouth, the children stopped complaining about the smell. It was either that or the laughing.
Or it could have been the placebo effect because as soon as they discovered I hadn’t actually found the Camembert they started complaining again. When we stopped at a service station so I could dispose of the chili and wash my hands they bought an official smelly forest air-freshener.
It was one of those Christmas-tree shaped things that dangle from the rear view mirror of taxis and which makes everyone except taxi-drivers feel distinctly queasy. I wiped the chili off the outside of the bottle and, instead of putting it in the bin, I tucked it into the seat pocket. I needed something to deodorize the smell of the forest fresh
All went well until a stop for dinner at the Drovers Inn. After an hour sealed into the car, the combination of the Camembert, the Forest Fresh and the chili had fermented into an explosively stomach-churning pong.
We opened all the windows, and drove, wind in our hair, ignoring the threat of frostbite in our extremities. From time to time the children would complain of the sub-zero windchill and we would close the windows. We’d last five minutes until the smell started to build up again to unbearable levels.
When we reached Sula and unpacked, the Camembert was refused entry and stayed outside in the mailbox. Since we are still waiting for Jamie the farmer to put up a fence around the house (materials were bought in June) we are at the mercy of Jamie’s band of marauding border collies who pop over a few times a day to check whether I’ve put out a bin bag or some other tasty titbit out by mistake and rip it apart leaving a trail of rubbish in their wake. I put the Camembert out of the way of dogs (I thought).
When Christmas Eve came it was time to cook the Camembert for a wee party we were having for the neighbours. It had been knocked off the mailbox but I was relieved to find it still in one piece, untouched by the band of dogs. It may have smelled like something had died long ago while in the box but baked, it was really tasty. I resolved that the discomforts of the journey was worth it and went to bed.
But the Camembert hadn’t had its last word.
In the morning the 11 year old came downstairs. I was cleaning up the party but the rind of the Camembert still sat on the kitchen worktop where it had been the night before. Daughter look one wiff of it and ran over and vomited in the sink. Between comforting the daughter and cleaning her up, I took the remains of the Camembert out into the garden and buried it. I took the cardboard and plastic wrapper that had been around the Camembert out of the bin and buried them next to the Camembert.
RIP Camembert…. and my New Years resolution is no Camembert in 2017. For the sake if my family.
Cuil Things to do 