Tomorrow’s World, Today

I consider myself to be quite a modern woman. Despite my hankering for a time gone by, I work full time. I have a computer at work, I also have a laptop at home which is mine. I have a mobile phone. I write a blog. I use Facebook sometimes and Twitter much more.

I’m reasonably well educated. Although I left school with only 2 O Levels, (there’s another story – remind me to tell you this one. I hope you’re keeping a note – this happens a lot), I subsequently went to college and achieved another 5 O Levels (or whatever they were called then) and 2 A levels as well. I decided then I was done with education for the time being but I’m now the proud holder of a 2:1 in English Literature from the Open University, and I’m even more proud the letters BA (Hons) can legitimately follow my name.

Some technology has me baffled though. A prime example is last weekend’s shopping trip to buy a new phone for the house. For some reason known only to the initiated, mine has decided to terminate all calls after about 10 minutes. At this point, the handset dies. I know it’s something to do with the battery, I do. It’s always charging up so it’s not like I leave it languishing about. Actually, I do, but not all the time, most of the time it’s on the unit. Anyway we decided we’d go out and buy a new phone, arrived at the shop, and stood aghast at the wide range of phones before us. We decided to adopt a sort of boardgame tactic, very much like Guess Who? We wanted it to be black – that rules out this chrome bunch here and a white one. I wanted one with normal sized buttons, not the ginormous buttoned one the other half had his eye on.

Then it came to the multiple handset ones, and this is how the conversation went…

Me:   How does it work when you've got more than 1 handset?
OH:   I think you just stick them in whatever room you want to.
Me:   And what then? I don't think we can have them. I haven't got a phone socket in the other rooms.
OH:   Don't need them.
Me:   You don't need them? How do they work then?
OH:  You just put them in the room. And they sort of work.
Me:   They just work? How does that happen? Do you need to plug them in somewhere?
OH:   Don't think so.
Me:   Is there a battery bit? Do they run off batteries?

                  I tipped it upside down. There's no battery bit.

Me:   There's no battery bit.
OH:   Well you probably just have to plug them into the socket to charge. Then they ring.
Me:   They ring just because you've plugged them in? That can't be right! The kettle doesn't ring...

It carried on like this for sometime despite the intervention of a sales assistant who even now is probably crying on the shoulder of her psychotherapist. Until I saw the magic word:-

Me:   Oh look! It says they're digital! That's why it works!
OH:   So does that mean you understand it now?
Me:    Not really. But if it says digital, I can say it's that.

But do you know what would have helped even more than seeing the magical "digital" word?

Taking my 12 year old to the shop with us. God help us when we have to do something by ourselves.

Not Old Mother Hubbard

I’m not really like Old Mother Hubbard, I’m the very opposite. Unless of course you take it very literally as there are no bones in the cupboards at all. At least I don’t think there are; I don’t really look in the backs of the cupboards, but I think I can fairly confidently say that it’s unlikely there are any bones in the cupboard. There are however plenty of other things, like maple syrup, bicarbonate of soda, hundreds and thousands and white wine vinegar. Some of them have been there for a long time. I try not to think too much about the sell by dates until I start a new recipe and need a particular item which I know I have in my cupboard, only to find out it’s not only past it’s “sell by” date and it’s “use by” date, but it’s now well into the “this is destroying your cupboard” date and the “this will kill you and several thousand people in your immediate vicinity if you remove the lid” date.

Part of the problem is I’m a bit of a cookery book fanatic. I have a lot of them, and I mean a lot. If I go to a book fair, a food fair, or probably a fun fair, I’ll return with a cookery book that contains the one elusive recipe for the absolutely perfect dessert that none of my other 25 recipe books contained. I’ll then choose a recipe I like the look of, discover I’ve got less than one tenth of the ingredients already and make my way to the local supermarket. I’ll then be staggered every single time when I walk round only to discover they don’t stock sheep’s milk cheese, fresh rosemary or dried bat’s blood, which is the absolutely essential item for the recipe and which I end up substituting with chicken stock or vanilla essence depending on the sweet or savoury nature of the dish. Almost invariably. I then potter off back home, make the recipe, and don’t get me wrong, it’s usually lovely, but I end up with a cupboard full of boxes, tins and bottles where I’ve used either a pinch or 3 drops and I never, ever come across any recipe ever again which contains them.

This isn’t the only problem I face when I go food shopping. The other half and I had a swish round Waitrose the other day, and I was overtaken by the spirit of a woman who wants to buy a lot of things in pretty boxes, which smell nice, and either say “organic”, “original recipe” or have a quaint little brand name like Fiddledeedee Pies. (If ever someone calls their range of pies that, someone needs to tell me, because I’ll be owed a lot of money). We walked round, I tried to plan meals for the entire week ahead, and we thought we’d got it well sorted, but then arrived home with no eggs which were kind of one of the very important ingredients.

When you’re making an omelette.

The problem, we decided, was that we didn’t use shopping lists. I rarely use a shopping list unless I’m going on one of the aforementioned specific recipe trips, but I associate them with a generation different to my own. I remember all too well being sent on shopping errands by my mum who had a, well let’s say, unique style. Until I learned better, I never looked at the list until I got into the supermarket, then I’d stand there while I tried to decipher what on earth she meant. Trolls were one of my favourite items which appeared regularly, and it took a while to work out that it actually said t-rolls, shorthand for toilet rolls. My other abiding memory is fininger, but I’m sure even the best educated of us could forgive my mum the slightly eccentric spelling of vinegar.

Still, it all makes for a slightly more interesting shopping experience, but if anyone can source me a recipe which uses whole nutmegs, peanut butter, dried suet, pickled red cabbage and lemon curd, I’d be eternally grateful.