The Dining-room

 

A blessed Good Friday to everyone. A bowl of hot cross bun dough is proving in the dining-room. Taking a tip from cookery genius Elizabeth David, I gave it a first proving overnight, so that the buns will be ready earlier today. David's advice is for bread, so I don't know what the end result will taste like. I'm hopeful. 

As a Good Friday penance, I will go out when the buns are baked and weed the lawn. Well, part of the lawn. But for now I want to think about dining, or rather dining rooms, especially the wonderful box of a room that was my childhood dining room. 

Someone told me recently that there are three altars in a marriage: the altar at church, the bed, and the table. When Lent began, Benedict Ambrose and I gave up our slothful habit of eating supper while watching a film. If you came from a family like mine, you may be shocked that we had fallen into such a habit. Alas. However, cheer up because every evening of Lent (save yesterday, when B.A. was at Mass and I was working), I cleared off the dining room table and we had a civilised, conversational supper, lately followed by a game of whist. 

Nowadays priests and psychologists suggest that families all sit down together for a communal meal at least once a week. When I was a child, my family had a communal meal at least once a day. Breakfasts for children of school age were in the kitchen, where my mother stuffed us with food: porridge (or, in hotter months, Cheerios), eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, orange juice. We positively rolled out the door (at exactly 8 AM) on our way to the school bus stop. However, she didn't eat with us, and my father was still comfortably in bed. 

Thus, the real communal meal, on weekdays, was supper--called dinner--always eaten in the dining-room. On weekends, there were two parents-and-children meals: brunch and dinner. I associate Saturday mornings with waffles and Sunday mornings with pancakes--the two things my father knew how to make--and brunch was eaten in the dining-room, too. Oooh---I just smelled coffee there. Waking up on a Saturday or Sunday, there was coffee in the air and my brother Nulli playing the piano. I think, however, that eventually Saturday brunch was abolished, thanks to a hectic schedule of ice hockey practise, ballet, etc. However, it still exists in our memories, which I image my mother hoped for. Should I ever find myself languishing in prison, I will keep my spirits up by taking refreshing holidays in the past. 

The dining room had been added to the house--which itself had once been a bungalow--by its former owner and, I think, creator. It was on the north-west corner of the house and had tall windows along the west and north sides. These were covered, at night, by thick woollen curtains of the most 1970s blue and orange tartan you ever saw. My mother made them, and when I discovered after I moved to Scotland that they were meant to be an approximation of the family tartan, I laughed heartily. 

I believe there was a blue wall-to-wall carpet, upon which many a pea or carrot square was dropped and into which they were trodden. In the middle of the room was a big shiny wooden dining room table, six smart wooden chairs, and usually a baby's high chair of painted wood. On the east wall of the dining room, there was a china cabinet with fancy plates and small glass ornaments. (I was rather more interested in the small glass ornaments at the time.) Above it was a long picture rail of some sort, on which stood a collection of fancy French mustard pots. There was also a doorless cupboard built into the wall on the south side, which held pewter tankards and christening mags. The whole dining room was lined with 1970s wood panelling, so it really was like a wooden box with windows. I think now it was a treasure box, for that is where all we children were civilised and educated with our parents' values and occasionally introduced to visiting scholars who were usually bearded but occasionally members of the Chinese Communist Party. 

I bring up the CCP members with glee because my parents thought it was amusing that these poor foreign students, survivors of the one-child policy, were probably for the first time in their lives sitting down to eat at a table with four or five children who were all siblings. Eventually one of them stayed in Canada and named his first child Canada Freedom. At any rate, eating with us may have been an education for them, too. If you really want to know a foreign place, sitting down for a family dinner is key. 

But actually what I remember best about the dining room is birthdays, birthday parties and birthday cake. This may be because the memories have been boosted by memories of photographs. That said, my strongest memories of the dining-room in the Historical House also involve parties. On the other extreme, I also remember surreptitiously feeding bits of "Spanish steak" to the cat because I loathed Spanish steak and did not know, in fact, that I could ever like beef until in my twenties I accidentally ordered filet mignon in a restaurant. So top points to my 20- and-30-something mother on cake, but not for beef. The cat may have disagreed, of course.

Curiously, I remember gifts from only one birthday dinner in that dining-room. These were very essential gifts, however, as they included a safe disguised as a book, a delicate coral-coloured rosary, and Prayer Book for Young Catholics by Fr. Robert Fox. Alas the safe and the rosary were soon broken, but Fox's book remained and as Fox was a crypto-trad (and as were, I now realise, my favourite parish priests), I was also a crypto-trad without knowing it. I was also a crypto-trad without practising it, as Family Rosary was not a thing in our house, presumably because my mother was a 1969 convert and the rosary was right out of fashion. However, another influential gift I received at some point was Fr. Lovasik's Heroines of God, so I was thoroughly indoctrinated and discovering the TLM was like returning to the barely-grasped, but essentially family, home of one's infancy.  

I can't remember what Good Friday meals were like then, which is probably a good thing. But that might not be fair, for I do recall hot cross buns from the supermarket, toasted with butter. I did not at the time like the candied fruit, but I did (for some odd reason) like the crunchy flour-and-water cross on top. 

Well, the buns have finished proving for the third time, so I must go turn on the oven. I was about to say that it is sad that I am not making memories for children myself, but this would have been foolish, for presumably our younger relations and friends will remember at least a few of my presents and jokes, and my writing students will no doubt recall my more colourful remarks. I hope one day my Polish Godling will be sent to me for English immersion in the summers, and then I will ply her with good Scottish cooking, so she can tell her own children that it is not true what they say about the British. 

"Vegetables aren't cheap"

Yesterday I totalled up how much we spent in March, and I tutted and sighed when I counted up how many times we really went to Tesco. In my fond imaginings, I thought we had gone only twice a week. However, it was more like three times a week, plus three forays into Waitrose. There was also a spontaneous trip to Lidl and a pop into Aldi. Also in my fond imaginings, we were spending only £40 a week on groceries.

Alas, alas!

"Vegetables aren't cheap," said B.A. in the slightly irritated voice of a man who thinks he is being blamed. 

I blame Berocca. No more Berocca, nasty expensive stuff. After Easter Sunday, I am putting the tubes at the back of the shelf to await October.  To be fair, cheese is also expensive, and as we had gone vegetarian for 5 days of the week, I did not stint. 

Finance blogs--especially FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) blogs--are great fun to read, and I always find the annual tally of the bravest and most transparent fascinating.  I am not so brave and transparent, so I'm showing you only food costs. For comparison and extra amusement, I will expose January and February, too. 

To keep North American readers from being shocked out of their minds, I should mention that the UK is one of the most expensive countries in Europe, and Edinburgh is the most expensive city in Scotland. Food just costs more here. 

For more fun, I have used a currency converter.  

January 2021

Groceries: £455.47  ($789.06 Canadian; $628.38 US )

Eating Out: £112.65 ($195.16 CAD;155.17 US)  

Total: £568.12

February 2021

Groceries £299.70 ($519.21 CAD; $412.82 US)

Eating Out: £45.15 ($78.22 CAD; $62.19 US)

Total: £344.85

March 2021

Groceries (including 3 month supply of Berocca)    £308.75 ($534.88 CAD; $425.85 US)

Eating Out: £25.30 ($43.83 CAD; $34.85 US)

Total: £334.05

Now I feel rather pleased, for we knocked over £223 off our food-and-toiletries costs just by paying attention--and, of course, observing Lent. 

At the same time I am rather appalled at how much food costs here. For example, that March £25.30/$43.83/$34.85 = 2 cappuccini & 2 French pastries; two Scottish pastries; and two ice-cream cones. How much is a top-quality ice-cream cone in Toronto?  

That said, we are talking top-quality ice-cream here. The French pastries were also top-quality--and beyond my skill set. The Scottish pastries were well within my skill set, however (see photo above), which is why there were so few of them in March. In short, the budget for our Sunday treat in Stockbridge went from £12 to £0 when we brought coffee in a thermos and homemade cake or pie in plastic tubs instead. 

Benedict Ambrose, being a contemporary Scot, is torn between love of eating out and love of saving money--and I must admit, I am too. I propose a compromise in which when we eat out we eat only those things that we could not have made at home just as well for a lot less money.  

FULL DISCLOSURE: This doesn't include my coffee subscription, which I will cancel when lockdown is over, saving us £2.95 a month. I have a weakness for good coffee. It is a thing. 

UPDATE: Thank you to whoever ordered something from Papier in my name. You have saved me 10% on my July to September wellness journal.  (I also have a weakness for good notebooks.)

STOP PRESS: Average food costs for two people in Toronto in 2020 were apparently $533.95 CA/month. Ah ha ha! (We spent $579.47 CA in March, which is not that far out.) Only $251.95 on Toronto groceries, though--but $282 on Toronto eating out & take out. Not that I'm judging. No. 

ANOTHER UPDATE: Our homeowner costs are a fraction of what the average Toronto homeowner pays. "O City, City!" 

Measurement is management

I read a lot of bad and sad news for work, which makes me unhappy. To cope, I have been keeping a "wellness journal"; I bought a personalised one from a quality paper company. It has pre-printed pages where you can fill in the date, your "intention for the day",  your hours of sleep, your meals, your water intake, your activities, your "self-care," your mood, your daily successes, your thoughts, and what you are currently grateful for. 

In the back there is graph paper, as in a bullet journal. I use it to record my hours of language study and time out of doors. 

I kept diaries until l began to blog (and even after that I kept travel journals), so this combination of tracking and writing suits me well. Writing down everything I eat seems to make me eat less, and the fun of filling in the water symbols makes me drink more. I definitely spend more time outdoors, now that I deliberately think about it. 

The journal certainly came in handy when writing my "Lenten Menus" post, as the original plans and the reality diverged so much, it was hard to make sense of the sheaf of paper in the kitchen. 

The very word "wellness" smacks of the mindfulness movement, but I think mindfulness is perfectly compatible with Christianity--as is good health. Mindfulness, Christianity, and good health all seem necessary to me for writing about, say, a priest who calls the cops on a pregnant lady in a back pew far from the rest of the congregation because she is not wearing a mask. For some reason, that low-grade pettiness depressed me more that the outright evil of clerical sex abuse. Maybe it was like the final snowflake that causes the avalanche. 

Fortunately, a delicious bowl of Ottolengi's "Tomato, Chickpea and Bread Soup" followed by a card game (which I won) cheered me right up. I finished my seventh glass of water and coloured in the symbol in my wellness journal, logged the soup and wrote down the things I was grateful for. There was already a note that I had planted "Pauline," spouse of Paul the Blackcurrant Bush.  

If you are feeling depressed, dehydrated, sluggish, fat, and overwhelmed, I definitely recommend a wellness journal. Here's a British list of recommended ones, and here is an American one.  

I also have a battered notebook in which I track our monthly spending, record our mortgage overpayments, and mention such helpful events as getting a lower phone rate after threatening to change providers. Financial bloggers often write about running one's household as if it were a business, which I think is sound to a certain extent. 

It makes more sense to do that in a household of adults. I don't think it would be good for children to think that they were financial liabilities. Of course, they could be reassured that, in fact, their presence reduces income tax and (depending on the state) brings other financial goodies, and--indeed--their happiness and security is the reason for running a tight household ship in the first place. 

I think children should know how much things cost, even if parents don't want them to know how much they earn. Growing up, I was blissfully unaware of how much ordinary things (like the electricity) cost my parents, and I think that was a pity because I just took it for granted. I also think it was a pity that I did not know that fancy clothes and cars and such things did not represent real wealth but just high spending. My classmates made fun of my clothes (a solid argument for school uniforms), and only now does it occur to me their clothes may have been bought on credit. 

I longed for snazzy clothes---how surprised (and disappointed) I would be to know that when I was paid enough to (almost) afford it, I would not have a closet of designer clothes but instead rely on my good old indestructable denim maxiskirt of maximum traddery. Of course, were we to win the lottery ... 

UPDATE: First ever endorsement of a company that I can remember. (Eeek!) If you were to order anything from Papier for the first time, using my name (or Dorothy Mclean--small "l" for some reason), you would save 10% and get me 10% off my next purchase, which I am very likely to make. I am not sure how this would work outside the UK. However, I really do like Papier's wellness journal. Just click here. 

Thinking about Driving

Driving is expensive. It burns fossil fuel. It is not strictly necessary in a Scottish urban environment. My husband is anti-car, and I would probably be just as anti-car if I didn't grow up with a car, and then two cars, in the driveway. But I did, and now I am very sorry I didn't take driving lessons at 16, when I was too young to think about how scary driving was. I thought about organising my lessons myself, but I had a phobia about talking to strangers on the phone. 

The fact is, I would like to learn to drive because I'm frightened of driving, and I'm tried of being frightened of driving. (I overcame the fear of speaking to strangers on the phone some decades ago.) As I can read papal encyclicals in Polish (with a dictionary), surely I can learn to drive. 

The problem is that I don't want to drive in the UK. I want to drive in Europe, when the time comes. My tentative retirement plans involve driving throughout Poland, to see "real Poland" (as eastern Poles call it) and small-town Italy. 

Driving to Europe would mean driving down to Newcastle, taking the ferry to Holland and then driving to Poland or Italy, which B.A. points out is not very cost effective. It would also entail switching from driving on the wrong left side of the road to the right, and this really burns me up, for if I had learned to drive in Canada, driving in Italy or Poland would be a relative doddle. 

That said, train travel in the UK is hella expensive, and it would be a joy just to drive where we want to go.  Perhaps B.A. would enjoy working out the mathematics to prove that insurance + car club membership + petrol is in fact more expensive than train travel. 

Any decision about learning to drive has to be put off, however, as commercial driving lessons are currently prohibited in Scotland. If I were Queen of the World, and would not be immediately forced into an expensive hotel quarantine upon arrival in Canada, and then again upon return to Scotland, I would go to Toronto, get a learner's license, do an immersive driving course and practise with my parents' smaller car. Maybe that is what I will, in fact, do one day--unless someone convinces me that this is a ridiculous thing to do, given that I live in a country where everyone drives on the wrong left side of the road.    

Update: Another factor is that the European continent has a widespread--and cheaper--network of trains. After retirement, it might be much cheaper to travel even in the UK by train than by private automobile.  

The Lenten Menu Challenge

Every year when Lent approaches, I think about the Eastern Churches, especially the Greek Orthodox. Their Lenten traditions of fasting and abstinence are just so superior to the contemporary Latin Catholic practice. The Greeks have whole cookbooks of Lenten dishes, largely vegan because they don't touch meat, fish-with-a-backbone, cheese, milk, butter or eggs during the fast. Oil and wine are allowed, but only on Saturdays (except Holy Saturday) and Sundays. I believe they get a break for the Feast of the Annunciation, upon which day they may eat fish. 

Well, you are what you eat, which means that Greek Christians who observe the Greek Lent are really Greek Christians, and Latins who think giving up meat on Lenten Fridays is a massive sacrifice are pathetic. Celebrating feasts and observing fasts through food is the very essence of the world visceral.

Benedict Ambrose draws the line at adopting Greek Lent although he has become accustomed to Latin mostly-vegetarian Lent. I think he prefers giving up meat six days a week to watching me give up coffee again. I doubtlessly need to stop drinking as much coffee as I do, but I think it would be safer not to attempt cutting back to less than a cup a day. 

We usually eat a lot of fresh fish, and as fresh fish is now (really) a luxury food (even in Scotland), I thought we would reserve it to Saturdays. I also thought it was about time I tackled the grocery bill, which has been no less than £400 a month for at least a year. That is a ridiculous amount of money for two people, I thought. No wonder we are overweight.

Therefore, to solve the problem of "What to eat?" and "How to spend less?" I sat down with a few cookbooks and a lot of paper and worked out six weeks of dinners. The menu was adjusted as time went on, for not all the dishes were to our taste. I made out a new shopping list every Saturday morning, consulting the cookbooks and researching the cupboards and fridge.

In sketching out the plan, I originally assigned a different protein to each day: meat for Sundays, lentils for Mondays, eggs for Tuesdays, chickpeas or anchovies for Wednesdays, cheese for Thursdays, and beans for Fridays. We didn't keep strictly to this. The choice of Saturday (and Annunciation Day) fish and Sunday meat I left to B.A.

The principal cookbooks were the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favourites (1996), my food bible in my boxing days, when I was a young green twig; Yotam Ottolengi's Plenty, a gift from a beloved Guardian-reading friend; and The Classic 1000 Indian Recipes. For variety's sake, I added things like "tuna casserole" and "quiche" and printed off recipes found on the internet later. 

The cook was usually B.A., who is at heart a meat-potato-and-veg man, so cooking dishes of many ingredients almost every night was real heroism. I wrote out the page number for each recipe on the menus. Meanwhile, the recipes would all feed four adults, so we both ate the leftovers for lunch the next day. They were filling, so we weren't that temped to snack--and actually, there wasn't much to snack on. 

So here we go, for those of you who are really interested.  

Ash Wednesday to Friday 

Wednesday: Chickpeas with ginger and rice

Thursday: Macaroni and cheese with mixed vegetables and broccoli

Friday: Black bean chili

Vigil of Lent I to Friday

Saturday: Aubergine enchiladas, chocolate cake, wine 

Sunday: Beef stew, cheesecake, wine

Monday: Moussaka

Tuesday: black bean chili (leftover)

Wednesday: Middle Eastern chickpeas with spinach and rice

Thursday: vegetarian lasagna and broccoli

Friday: "Fat Tuesday Skinny Red Beans" with cornbread

Vigil of Lent II to Friday

Saturday: Trout and leftover skinny red bean stew

Sunday: Steak, veg, potato, apple crumble, wine

Monday: Giambotta & big roasted mushrooms

Tuesday: Kale spanakopita (Hello, the Greeks!)

Wednesday: Pasta with anchovies and onions

Thursday: Goat cheese and garlic tart (Ottolenghi)

Friday: Cassoulet with spiced tofu (NB Not a keeper)

Vigil of Lent III to Friday

Saturday:  Tuna casserole (Hello, the Americans and Canadians!) & cherry bakewell

Sunday: Duck leg, potatoes, baby corn, snap peas & cherry bakewell, wine

Monday: Lentil curry with rice

Tuesday: Tomato, chickpea and bread soup (Ottolengi)

Wednesday: "Surprise tartin" (Again Ottolenghi)

Thursday: Macaroni and cheese with red pepper and mixed veg

Friday: Black bean chili and whole wheat toast

Vigil of Lent IV (Laetare Sunday) to Friday

 

Saturday: Fillet of plaice, baked potato, mixed veg & strawberry cake

Sunday: Duck fillet, roast potatoes, red cabbage with apple & strawberry cake, wine 

Monday: Cauliflower curry 

Tuesday: Cheddar and broccoli quiche, leftover red cabbage with apple

Wednesday: Middle Eastern chickpeas with spinach and rice

Thursday: "Lighter Lasagna" i.e. vegetarian lasagna with cottage cheese

St. Joseph's Day: Fish cakes, mixed veg, & zeppole di San Giuseppe (pastry cream buns)

Vigil of Lent V to Friday 

Saturday: Ottolengi's "Very Full Tart" (roast veg, cheeses, cream) & cherry bakewell squares

Sunday: poussin, mashed potatoes, broccoli & cherry bakewell squares, wine

Monday: Giambotta (Italian veggie stew) & large roast mushrooms

Tuesday: Tuna casserole 

Wednesday: Pasta and anchovies, glass red wine because: 

Feast of the Annunciation: trout, baked potato, mixed veg & apple crumble

Friday: Cassoulet with baked eggplant (NB Still not a keeper)

Vigil of Lent VI to Good Friday

Saturday: fish in beer batter and oven chips, mixed veg & chocolate cake

Updated: Sunday: ham, potatoes, broccoli & chocolate cake, wine & pasta with pesto (long story)

Monday: lentil curry

Tuesday: chickpea, tomato and bread soup

Wednesday: "Surprise tartin"

Thursday: macaroni and cheese with mixed vegetables

Good Friday: Skinny Red Beans, hot cross buns

The truly attentive will notice that we usually had dessert on Vigil of Sunday as well as Sunday, and the reason for that was principally that it is difficult to make cakes and tarts for only two people to consume on one day. The other Vigil & Sunday treats were pre-dinner crisps and, for B.A., beer. The daily staples were muesli and bread. Eventually I began to make the bread myself. To keep wine fresh, we bought it in boxes.

The cost of groceries during Lent, not including coffee, was approximately £240 - £270. (I usually work this out on a monthly basis.) Meanwhile, we both lost weight. Update: It was more like £450!

12 Years On: Advice for Married Life

Actual spouse in hospital.

When, to my great surprise, someone splendid wanted to marry me and indeed did, a reader suggested that I begin to write advice about married life. My response was a mix of humility and trepidation, as I hadn't been in it long enough yet. Besides, that whole first year of marriage, Benedict Ambrose and I had a gin-and-tonic before supper and then half-a-bottle of wine at dinner, so I was drunk every night and in no shape to give advice. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive. 

However, a young affianced person recently asked me to send posts about married life, and I realised that 12 years is probably enough experience to draw upon, especially when explicitly asked for advice. Also, I once asked a very wise Lebanese woman for marriage advice, and what she said at once was so personal, shocking and yet obviously sound that it stuck in my mind together.

The Lebanese lady advice was this: the bedroom door is shut; never discuss what happens behind it with anyone. I would temper that by saying "except when, at absolute need, the doctor, the priest, or the therapist." But yeah. 

That leads to my own first piece of advice, which is that your first human loyalty is to your spouse. If out rowing on the pond, and your boat sinks, and you have to choose between saving your spouse and your sibling, you have to choose your spouse.  What is more likely, fortunately, is that your dilemma will be between family time and putting in more time at work. Pick the family time; work through your lunch-hour if necessary. Go to work at 6 AM. Whatever. Spouse first. And yes, for heaven's sake, don't discuss bedroom stuff with the girls or guys. Of all the things not their business, that is at the top of the list.

Loyalty to spouse can take an unusual turn. When poor B.A. went back to work after his first brain op, his mental agility began to decline, and he would come home angry and frustrated. He was making many mistakes, and his well-meaning colleagues were covering up for him. He was very worried about his manager finding out.  Finally, I snuck into his work behind his back, knocked on his manager's door, and told her that B.A. was unfit for work and needed to go back on medical leave. I would call the doctor for a letter. The manager agreed at once. 

I'm very glad I did that, and so was B.A. when his manager told him to go on medical leave, but man, that was hard to do. 

This leads me to my next point: spouses get sick and sometimes they even die.  In my experience, men are especially prone to this illness and sometimes even dying stuff. So this leads to a whole sub-category of good advice, namely:

    If your spouse hasn't signed up with the doctor and dentist, sign him/her up yourself.

    If your spouse feels lousy but won't make an appointment, make his/her appointment yourself.

    If your spouse is very sick but is not getting adequate medical attention, call up the doctor and report      how sick he/she is. 

    If your spouse is hospitalised, visit him/her every day. If you can, arrive at the beginning of visitor hours, and hang on until the end.  

    If all this applies, get yourself the support you need: reach out to family, friends, your priest, the parish, the local caregivers association. Otherwise it will be much harder for you to fight for your spouse. And if he (or she) does die despite your efforts, you don't want to be alone. 

Meanwhile, here are three important things you need before your spouse gets sick: both of you need to make wills and the husband of a low-income wife needs either life insurance or to sign on for his work's death-in-service payout. (If the woman has such things at her work, she should sign on for that, too.) One of the worst moments in my life was getting half-loopy B.A. to sign onto his work's pension plan from his hospital bed, so that I would get his death-in-service payout if he croaked. 

My next point, drawn from experience, is also depressing but a fact of life in this vale of tears: God doesn't send babies to everyone. The question is, what are you going to do if God doesn't send babies to you? Learn the actual facts about adoption in your country. When I discovered that adoption is astonishingly inexpensive in the UK, I almost collapsed. But, sadly, adoption is not an option for us because, inter alia, B.A. is still technically a cancer patient. Fortunately, we have a niece and nephews, and kindly Polish Pretend Son sends me photos and videos of my quasi-divine god-daughter Godling. 

Childlessness can be absolutely devastating for your spouse, if not for you. I got the bad news (over the phone, thanks NHS! Clap, clap!) years ago, and the last time I cried over it was--last night. So have a plan. Hopefully you won't need it, but have it. 

But to go back to this "spouses get sick and die" concept, here is some excellent money advice: learn to live on half the family income, and bank/invest the rest. This way, if your spouse is no longer being paid for some reason, like illness, job loss or death, your finances will be okay. (This sense of okayness assumes, of course, that both spouses normally work. If not, life insurance is even more important.) This is also a good way to save for a down payment on a home--if you want to own a home--and to pay off the mortgage much faster, saving you thousands in interest payments.  

One of the most enduring of traditional female beliefs is that once you get married, your financial future is assured because husband. No disrespect to BA, who worked day in and day out at the same challenging job for 15 years, but HA HA HA HA! My advice to all wives--including stay-at-home mums--is to find some way of making even just pin money, as a way of bringing in extra income and having something to put on the CV if/when their husbands get sick/lose their jobs/die. My full-time job--snagged between BA's operations--came thanks to 9 years of paid part-time column-writing. The lockdown wiped out BA's job, but mine remains. How like the 1980s British horror films about male unemployment that haunt my nightmares.

Another weird but enduring female belief is that married life looks anything like the adverts in bridal magazines. In bridal magazine world, you go from eating pizza on unopened crates in your sunny, hardwood-floored apartment (or even house) to your parents' level of upper/upper-middle/middle-class comfort in a twinkling. This is a lie. There is no twinkling. There is scrimping, saving, budgeting, and self-denial. You're not getting diamonds-by-the-yard from Tiffany & Co. until you're 45, if even then. As it happens, Tiffany stuff keeps its resale value, but when you are 45, you might be more interested in socking as much as possible into investments, so your husband can semi-retire at 55 and live until 80 instead of working a stressful job until 65 and dying at 66.

Have I mentioned that husbands get sick and sometimes even die? Yes, I think I've covered that. 

  

To continue on a more cheerful note, always remember why you fell in love with your spouse in the first place, and ponder that you knew his or her bad points in advance, probably because kind friends told you what they were, or he or she confessed to them to you in a moment of conscience-stricken candour before you got married. Presumably, in the fog of love, you nodded and gave your assent to living with whatever it was. Therefore, you have no right to resent the overwhelming ambition (or lack thereof), the neat-freakery (or sloppiness),  and the placid disposition (or frequent bouts of hysteria). Also, ponder how difficult it may be to live with you.  The devil sends you bad thoughts about your spouse, and the quickest way to get rid of them is to think about your own very real faults. Do that. 

Next, remember that men are not women, and women are not men. If you're the kind of woman who loves female companionship, don't expect your husband to be a woman substitute. When you vent to your husband about something, and he just gives you advice or (worse) tells you not to exaggerate/sees it from a contrary point of view, instead of killing him, find the phone and call a girlfriend. If you're a man who routinely insults and one-ups his friends, don't be surprised if your wife bursts into tears when you do the same to her.

Finally, really celebrate all the great times. Memories of the great times, thoroughly celebrated, will get you through the bad times. In the long cold night before BA's first operation, we discussed the wonderful holidays we had had in Italy, and we planned the wonderful holidays we hoped to have in future. 

Finally finally, there is nothing like a brush with death to make you understand how really loveable your spouse is and how lucky blessed you are to have one another.

Menus and shopping lists

Just a tiny post to say that this has been the tastiest Lent ever because, in an attempt to have a strict Lent, I worked out a six week supper plan, using three cookbooks with many vegetarian recipes, plus a couple of online finds. It was easy to make shopping lists based on this plan, and this cut down our normal shopping trips to 2 a week--or 3, if you count grocery tourism at Tesco. As a result, we have not just lost weight, we have also saved a lot of money.