Tripe and onions, anyone?

Nick was hanging out in my craft room while I was preparing a craft for Monday’s girl’s group, and he happened to ask what we were having for supper. I relayed my frustration over cooking on the island to him, where I can’t simply plan a month’s meals and go buy the ingredients – you have to take what you can get, and substitute this for that, or have chicken for days on end until you can find any mince again or decent beef cuts – you’re really at the mercy of the shops and local providers (unless you have any recipes for pickled pork cuts or tongue or pig’s kidneys). It’s jolly annoying trying to cook under these circumstances. Plus there is my frustration at being somewhat slowed down by the mole removals – I can’t chop up loads of stuff, because there is too much tensing of armpit muscles for those sorts of activities which causes pulling on the stitches and things (who would have thought you need those odd body parts for so many things!) It was a good discussion though, because it ended in Nick and me going to Thorpes and Tinkers together, leaving the boys at home busy with their playdough, to see what sort of things were available for an instant meal. I had already taken chicken out the freezer, so we bought a packet of ‘spice up your rice’ stuff which was on the reduction shelf, a tin of mixed veggies and some onions. Supper was grilled chicken kebabs and savoury rice, both of which were quite nice, and both of which Nick essentially cooked. I wouldn’t even have minded MacDonalds at this point.

This morning we were all sitting around having muesli for breakfast, when I felt a really hard bit which I didn’t want to crunch too hard on in case I broke another tooth. Too late – the hard bit was a tooth. Seems to be the same tooth which was just so wonderfully patched up yesterday. I am so upset with these teeth of mine, and almost embarrassed to go back to the dentist on Monday morning! Quite a big portion of the tooth simply came away, so there’s a hole right against my gum which doesn’t feel too great.

I bought new toothbrushes for the boys yesterday at the dentist, and the boys love them – they’re bright orange, but differently shaped and sized for their different stages of teeth. Aaron brushed his teeth at about 3 pm today, just for the fun of it. I guess it’s a legitimate way of getting toothpaste into his mouth, as we’ve banned him from actually eating it, as he did on Thursday or Wednesday morning halfway through school – it’s easy to catch toothpaste-eating when the offender suddenly smells minty-fresh after having gone for a wee!