sarahm stories

I was cycling to my acupuncture appointment yesterday and as I was waiting at the traffic lights a bright green creature thing landed on my handle bars.

Normally I'm ok with insect type things (apart from spiders) but this one was for some reason very alarming. A very lurid shade of green (almost looked like a toy painted creature), whiskery antenna type things and a very large sort of grass-hoppery body. Didn't look like something you'd normally see in the UK.

I wiggled my bike to try and get rid of it but it was having none of it.

So I had to move on to the pavement, get off my bike and dig out a pencil which I used to poke it away.

I'd like to be able to have taken a pic to upload here, but frankly i found the whole episode very unnerving and so was focused on just getting rid, as quickly as possible.

I'd like to think it was some kind of nice green omen or a thank you from a nice green god somewhere saying well done Sarah for cycling to your acupuncture appointment. But if that's the case then really I'd have preferred some nice green marzipan thing that I could eat. Not a horrid green insect.

Just thought I'd share.

Well my parents have been staying this weekend. I'd been talking to them about credit crunch and climate change rather virtuously: "we don't use the tumble dryer any more..", "I've been doing some clever creative things with beans and pulses that mean we're not eating as much meat as we used to...", "have you thought about doing car share", "I quite enjoy the challenge of using everything up in the fridge from a list of diverse ingredients" etc. Rather smug, definitely irritating.

Parents listened patiently, didn't say much, nodded supportively.

Then yesterday early evening, I'd finished preparing all the veg (to go with the boeuf bourgignon - i know, bad and not very easy on the meat but it was a special occasion) and was sitting on the sofa catching a bit of X Factor before the final bit of cooking.

Dad came in and asked if we were having roast potatoes. No, I said; they wouldn't be right with boeuf bourgignon. We're having mashed.

"Well you might want to make your potatoes a bit smaller. If you chop them in half, tip out most of that water and put a lid on you'll use half the gas" he said.

Right of course. They've been spending the last 40 odd years busy trailing around the house turning off lights after their various children - energy conservation isn't exactly new news to them.
And there was I foolishly assuming the climate change highground.

So I went and chopped all the potatoes in half, poured out all the water and put a lid on.

And then asked him whether he had any more good tips...

I did it virtuously

I did it jollily

I did it cunningly