It was Thursday evening. Jelly, I thought. I haven't had jelly in years. I rooted around at the back of the cupboard and found two packets of raspberry jelly. That'll do. And fruit. All I could find was pineapple, and tinned pineapple at that. Does raspberry go with pineapple? Probably not.
I wanted a good set, so I put both packets in. Remembering how frustrating it was as a child when the lumps refused to dissolve, I took the kitchen scissors to the slippery blocks and cut them into slimy little nubbles before adding the boiling water. Andrew used to eat bars of jelly as a kid, instead of chocolate. I thought he was disgusting. I popped a square of it into my mouth. It was disgusting.
I chopped the pineapple rings into raggedy chunks and spooned them into the warm jelly. They smelled of tin, not coconut, like fresh pineapple does. I don't like fresh coconut much, but fresh pineapple smells like furze and tastes like sunshine. Tinned pineapple smells sad, and tastes a little bit lonely.
They floated. I hadn't expected that, and for some reason I found it horribly disappointing. Perverse, really, as floaters are generally more exciting than foodstuffs which sink. I think it was at that point that I realised I wouldn't be able to eat it until the morning, and that I didn't really want to eat it anyway. How depressing.
It was a ridiculous episode, and alarmingly typical. I don't know where I get these notions or why I feel a compulsion to tell you about them.
I had a bowl of jelly for afters in Nana's on Sunday evening. Somewhere along our conversational meander she mentioned that she'd had a cup of Oxo the evening before. I asked her if she meant Bovril (which is also mankygank) but no, she meant Oxo. She dissolved cubes of beef stock in hot water and drank it. "Funny" she said, "I didn't enjoy it". I'm not fucking surprised. We're not that different, my nana and I.
I wanted a good set, so I put both packets in. Remembering how frustrating it was as a child when the lumps refused to dissolve, I took the kitchen scissors to the slippery blocks and cut them into slimy little nubbles before adding the boiling water. Andrew used to eat bars of jelly as a kid, instead of chocolate. I thought he was disgusting. I popped a square of it into my mouth. It was disgusting.
I chopped the pineapple rings into raggedy chunks and spooned them into the warm jelly. They smelled of tin, not coconut, like fresh pineapple does. I don't like fresh coconut much, but fresh pineapple smells like furze and tastes like sunshine. Tinned pineapple smells sad, and tastes a little bit lonely.
They floated. I hadn't expected that, and for some reason I found it horribly disappointing. Perverse, really, as floaters are generally more exciting than foodstuffs which sink. I think it was at that point that I realised I wouldn't be able to eat it until the morning, and that I didn't really want to eat it anyway. How depressing.
It was a ridiculous episode, and alarmingly typical. I don't know where I get these notions or why I feel a compulsion to tell you about them.
I had a bowl of jelly for afters in Nana's on Sunday evening. Somewhere along our conversational meander she mentioned that she'd had a cup of Oxo the evening before. I asked her if she meant Bovril (which is also mankygank) but no, she meant Oxo. She dissolved cubes of beef stock in hot water and drank it. "Funny" she said, "I didn't enjoy it". I'm not fucking surprised. We're not that different, my nana and I.
