For the love of an onion!

So how was your weekend?  Did everything go to plan?  Did you decide to be completely decadent and spend the entire weekend sleeping? Or did you helplessly watch it drift by, as though it had a mind of its own?

Like most of my well laid plans, I had a dream too!  But my dreams tend to get waylaid by some impish joker, who thinks nothing of throwing a spanner into the works, that or throw a bucket of water over me.  For the first time in more months than I can remember, I decided I'd have a weekend free of toil.  The plan was to spend as much of the weekend as possible being 'arty'; waving paintbrushes like a Japanese robot, freed from the monotonous practice of building endless cars that nobody wants to buy, who suddenly discovers life.  Life would either be seen by the robot to be a splendorous tribute to Mother Nature's determination to overcome all obstacles in her way, as is par for the course (well done Tigress Woody), or be faced with the unenviable truth that life at the mill is a somewhat pleasurable form of slavery.

So there I am, up at 6am on Saturday morning, the autumnal darkness no different to going to bed at 2am, as I often seem to these days.  By 9am I'm doing the food shopping at the local supermarket; thank god for small supermarkets!  Nothing worse than having a shopping trolley, suffering from a cranky wheel determined it's the boss.  Have you ever wondered how many hours of your life you've wasted wrestling with a trolley, only to come away with the crap beaten out of you?  Yes, you do the sensible thing and exchange it for another, only to find that it's decided that as a fully paid up member of the 'Truckin' Trolleys' Co-Operative Union, it's going to be an even bigger pain in your butt, than your former headmaster was giving you several strokes of the whippy stick.

I was in luck as the trolley decided it was going to give me an easy time; by 9.30 I was back on the streets, loaded up with healthy food, it had 'Bio' on the label.  I've always taken those three letters on trust, never once questioning whether 'Bio' means produced naturally, produced as a result of biological and chemical warfare, or biodegradable and therefore the end product will rot down without too much damage to the environment, but may well cause a blockage elsewhere in the system.  10 minutes later I'm back home, whipping myself into culinary thoughts of the first excellent homemade chicken, leek and mushroom soup of the friggin' chilly season.  But upon emptying the three shopping bags, a glaring omission, the humble but very essential onion.  One can only take pity on a fully grown man, who's boyish excitement is a more delightful sight than his normal miserable, chewed toffee, face, who collapses into a Tsunami of doubt, quickly followed by the ungentlemanly expressions of a great ape after being told by Desmond Morris that he and the idiot are closely related.

Plan B was eventually brought into play, as soon as the hairshirt had been removed, and the self-flagellation with a washing up sponge had been completed.  One can only admire the tenacity of a man on a mission.  Plan B is always brought into play for the only reason that it makes those who use it appear organised, have options, and is useful to have around in an emergency.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Plan B is nothing more than an exercise in seeing how far you can out do the imagination of Hans Christian Anderson.  Basically Plan B follows the well-trod path of cock up, reaction to cock up, and intelligent response to undo said cock up.  There's perhaps no greater sight than a man with his cock up, doing all he can to save face at the sight of his cock up, finally overcoming his embarrassment at that moment in time.

By now it was around 10.30am, and as with any conflict involving the British mentality, a frappe was in order; living in foreign climes for some time tea has largely been replaced by the exotic nature of coffee's ability to be disguised in any number of ways.  Despite it being friggin' chilly, and hanging on to the last vestiges of machismo, an ice cold frappe still holds an appeal and not one you let go of lightly.  So frappe and sandwich, I was feeling hungry due to the shopping trip, and the overworked brain that had at least decided most of it was going to enjoy the weekend, and come what may do no work.

Eventually, I returned to the city centre, a few minutes from my doorstep and proceeded to find the missing onion.  As the outdoor market is in the main square of town, I was surrounded by the fruit and veg of the season, neatly laid out in mutlicoloured rows of succulent and tasty offerings.  As I wandered from stall to stall I couldn't remember what I wanted., which I have to admit is somewhat worrying.  Standing there, I suddenly remembered that I needed something else, which had nothing to do with peppers, apples or bent cucumbers, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was either.  Had I been aware of my forgetfulness perhaps I might have rightly concluded that senility was on its way, but somehow forgetting what forgetfulness is can be a mixed blessing.

But after 3 hours or so wandering aimlessly about in department stores, which is always a nightmare on a Saturday, where I bought some DVDs and boxer shorts, neither which were needed in the great scheme of things. I was rescued from the thickness of my own fog by that all American hero, CAPTAIN STARBUCKS!  Those who may decry Starbucks clearly have never experienced its uncanny ability to sweep away the brain's stubborn nature.  Sitting outside in the cold, enjoying a piping hot Grande coffee of the week, watching people going about their business, is all the recuperative medication one needs to remember that you've just spent endless hours doing precisely nothing.  But the one thing I did remember was that I needed an onion.

The rest of the weekend?  I went back to work and had dinner on Sunday with another dear friend.  At least if I'm working, enjoying the company of a close friend, I'm not in the slightest danger of forgetting......How did I say I was going to finish this blog?