Food, glorious food...

It’s my Mum’s 65th Birthday on Monday, and I’m unsure if that makes me or her feel older.  Anyway, in honour of this, I headed off to cow country (Somerset, to the uninitiated) to spend the night at my parent’s house.  I arrived as my sister was whipping my Dad at Scrabble… It’s a long running feud; I tend to leave them to it, as word games are really not my thing.  I prefer a challenge that involves untamed violence and aggression.  Like air hockey, for example.

On Saturday night, we walked to a local hotel for a lovely dinner.  It’s a reasonably upmarket place (although probably less upmarket than it thinks it is), so I was just relieved that my Dad decided against giving me any shit for wearing a skanky old pair of Converse.  Anyway, dinner was lovely, and for a student, dining out on salmon is a real treat.

As they only have one spare bed, I was out-ranked by my sister and brother-in-law, thus relegated to sleeping on the sofa.  Normally, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but I woke up about 5.30 am, and couldn’t get back to sleep.  In the end, I gave up trying, and turned on the TV instead.  My parents have digital satellite, which includes around 20 music video channels.  Whenever I visit, I sit and repeatedly flick through all of them, and it drives my Dad crazy.  The biggest monstrosity I encountered was Gene Simmons (of Kiss) massacring The Prodigy’s Firestarter.  I couldn’t decide which was worse, his version of the song, or the video – filled with bikini-clad, silicon-enhanced blondes – which was so tacky and OTT that even David Lee Roth would probably have thought it too much.

On Sunday, my sister had kindly volunteered to show off her culinary skills by cooking a wonderful Sunday lunch for us all.  It beat the hotel hands down, and I think she was rather chuffed when I told her that it was the best meal I’d had in a very long time.  However, given my general ineptitude in the kitchen, this is hardly surprising.  Most of my meals tend to involve rice, pasta or toast, and without fail lack any kind of ambition.  I think part of the problem is living on my own, there's no-one to even try to impress.