So, Fiona is away for a fortnight, here is my chance to have fun. Ooooh!, thinks I, I'll order a Chinese Take-Away. Nice plan. I know I'm going to love it, they are so delicious.
I ordered Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup, Prawn Crackers and Cantonese Chicken with Chips.
It was horrible. Really horrible. Eleven pounds, and it was truly disgusting. I hated it.
The soup was thin and too hot. Even after cooling, somehow it was too hot. I put soy sauce into it, and then it was too salty and bitter.
The Prawn Crackers were old - and tasted slightly rancid. I only risked two before giving up.
The Cantonese Chicken was overly sweet, and the vegetables were to soft and slushy. Chinese vegetables should be crisp and add variety to the texture of the meal. These failed utterly. The meat was done in a thick batter, not a tight Chinese tempura. It was more like Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls, but with the balls in the sauce. The result was more slush, with some cheap and tasteless bits of chicken inside.
It was a rubbish meal, and I am glad that I will be moving out of Stanley to somewhere with a decent network of take-aways, both Chinese and otherwise.
So why the calendar?
Well, they sent it to me, along with the order. It's a nice tradition - but in this case, it's a trashy thing.
Kinda makes sense, alongside the trashy food.
Did I mention that the chips were like rubber, and very cold?
So I decided to tear it up.
After all, it was my only way of fighting back, they already had my money and probably would not give it back, no matter how bitterly I complained.
So I decided to tear up this calendar - this calendar with its awful Coy Carp pictures. Even then there are two months to a page. That smacks of cost cutting.
Then, somehow, the tearing up of the menu started to mean something more.
It was like I was tearing up a part of me. Maybe the chasing of food as a means of feeling better.
Not just that, but a rejection of the helter-skelter way I react to living on my own. The truth is that I don't do too well as a solo occupant of Griffin House, or anywhere else for that matter.
I do just fine if there is someone else in the house, even if I rarely see them. But if I am completely alone, suddenly the place seems even massiver than it really is.
Other symptoms:
1) I can't go to bed. I can sleep, but I struggle to go up to bed. I haven't worked this out.
2) I don't cook for myself. Normally I love cooking.
3) I feel a great desire to go out and be away from the house.
I'd like to leave all of this behind, and it looks like I'm going to get a chance to. Whilst I look forward to being with Liz and my move to Newbiggin, I find myself completely stranded.
I feel like I am washed up here in Griffin house, with precious little finalised about anything else. We have sold the house, but what then?
It's an exciting time. Did I say exciting? I meant interesting. Did I say interesting? I meant scary.
I guess I want to tear up all that negativity, all that uncertainty and get on with starting afresh.
Maybe it took a naff Chinese meal to finally teach me that.
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