Le weekend

Got back home lateish yesterday after a weekend of not-unalloyed joy in Brighton. Best Beloved and I both have Aged Parents who are finding their twilight years a bit of a misery, as a result not of any major illnesses but rather a growing list of pretty-much untreatable minor stuff, like persistent headaches and dodgy musculo-skeletals, coupled with somewhat of a lack of friends and hobbies. Needless to say, BB and I thus find that visiting with said APs can be slightly spirit-dampening affairs.

Having said that, we did find time this weekend past to: have three very enjoyable meals out; spend an inordinate amount of money on books; exchange presents left over from Christmas (including a rather dandy flexible keyboard on which I am now typing - so rugged that you can wash it under the tap, apparently); and buy enough material to make a couple of pairs of trousers. So not-unalloyed joy though it may have been, it was also not-unalloyed sadness.

Long-livers and floating kidneys

While Husband embarked on the first leg of his four-year walk to (a) Brighton and (b) the age of fifty, I headed down south for a bit of a visit to m' dear friend Ben the Curate, a woman born to the dog-collar if ever there was one (and not in a bad way). We had a very girly time, eating far too much chocolate, searching for shoe bargains in Leamington (Ben 0, Me 1 [a rather fetching pair of black court shoes with ickle bows on the front for a mere £12]) and watching the best part of season 3 of Scrubs. Thanks to a rather fine restaurant in Warwick, I was also able to satisfy a lifetime's love of liver, a foodstuff that is beautiful when cooked properly but is very easy to cook badly. This time it was cooked to perfection with pancetta and mash, and I ate so much of it and the pudding that followed that it felt like my eyeballs were floating on food.

And so, combining matters eccumenical and culinary/physiological, here is one of my dad's favourite jokes.

Parishioner: Vicar, would you pray for my sister's floating kidney.
Vicar: I'm sorry, but I don't think that would be appropriate.
Parishioner (chastened): Why not? After all, you prayed for all the long livers last week.

Oh, how we larfed!