The Frumplingtons

It’s nearly the end of the year; just a few loose ends to tie up re. this year’s Christmas — better late than never, eh?

Christmas lunch went well; Shana excelled herself and managed, despite a few misgivings, to cook and — just as important — to time everything to perfection. Nothing would have been worse, after all, than having our turkey on Christmas day and our sprouts three days later.

I excelled myself, as usual, in the potato and carrot preparation department. We kept the peelings. I intend to make an art installation out of them. Anything left over will be made into soup.

After lunch, in a fine example of gender role reversal, Shana dozed while I watched Rodgers and Hammerstein’s cowboy opera, Oklahoma! Shana woke up halfway through ‘Poor Jud is Dead’, declared the whole thing awful and flipped over to Top of the Pops. That was equally awful so we flicked back to Oklahoma! well in time to see Jud set fire to the haystacks before slipping over and getting killed by his own dagger, the silly old fool.

The BBC’s Doctor Who Christmas special was only half correctly described. Yes, it was on at Christmas: but no, it was certainly nothing special. In fact, it was a big disappointment.

Thank heavens for Wallace and Gromit’s A Matter of Loaf and Death. I have to say, however, that it has put me off wholemeal Nimble for a while. Next year will have to be a low calorie year, though, at least till lunchtime. Even though we cut down drastically on the amount of chocolates, nuts and other indulgences this year, we still seem to have eaten enough to feed a small Viking army.

And if I never see another mince pie till next Christmas, it won’t be too soon!*

[* Did I really say that? Blimey, I really must have had too much.]

We might not be the greatest gardeners in the world, but we still care about Nature. Imagine my dismay, then, when I looked out this morning on our 1⁄640th of an acre and saw what last night’s cold snap had done to it.

• Our groundsel had given up the ghost.
• Our twitch had turned turtle, and
• Our bindweed had bowed its weary head.

‘Hot diggity!’ I exclaimed. ‘The frost has got our weeds!’

Shana did her best to console me, though. ‘There, there,’ she said. ‘You can always plant some more next year.’

[The Frumplingtons Garden Appeal (it’s a bit like one of those Blue Peter appeals but without the milk bottle tops) starts now. Send all the cuttings you can afford. Please give generously.]

Why, when I should simply be eating and enjoying my food like any other normal person, do I have to go in for deep philosophical inquiry or intellectual theorising about it? I ought to do what Mama Frumplington used to tell me to do: ‘Shut your mouth and eat your dinner!’ (I never could work out what that meant.)

Those who dither over dinner face serious disadvantages. As the old adage goes, ‘Enquiring mind equals cold potatoes’ — or something along those lines, anyway.

Yesterday evening was a perfect example. Instead of wolfing my McVitie’s Christmas Irish Cream bar in under two seconds, as I usually might (and jolly tasty they are, too) I stood at the kitchen worktop, as if mesmerised, staring at the packaging. After years of snacking on digestive biscuits and other of the mighty McVitie’s products, it had only just occurred to me to wonder about the origins of the McVitie name. I don’t mean just the history of the biscuit company; you can find that out any time you like. No, I’m talking about the surname itself.

‘The “Mac” or “Mc” part of Scottish surnames means ’son or daughter of’, doesn’t it?’ I said. Shana nodded and fished the pencil from behind her ear, preparing to take notes.

‘So that must mean that the surname ‘McVitie’ must mean ’son — or daughter —  of Vitie. But ‘Vitie’ doesn’t sound like a proper name, does it. So where does the name come from?’

Suddenly something snapped. I looked up. Shana cussed and glared at the broken point of her pencil. Leaning on the paper too hard again, I thought. I’ve told her about that before. She promised to do some research on the internationalnet — ’glooging’ I think she called it — just so long as I promised to get on and eat my delicious Irish Cream bar now — or, at any rate, before it reached its best before date sometime in January 2009.

And here, thanks to Shana’s finely honed information foraging skills, is all you need to know about the McVitie name:

[T]his is a famous Scottish surname, which is also well recorded in Ireland. … It has been claimed … that the origin is the ancient pre 12th century Gaelic word “bhiadh”. This may be a form of the original French word “vitaille” and the even older Latin “victualis”, and as such it would have been occupational for a merchant, one who supplied “victuals” or provisions. … The fact that this surname is also world famous for making biscuits is surely only coincidence.

source: The internet surname database

Disclaimer: in case you were wondering, we are not being paid, either directly or indirectly, for mentioning McVitie’s products. Our opinions are genuine. We just happen to like them. However, if anyone from McVitie’s is reading this, we would be quite happy to make room in our cupboards for a small truckload of free samples.

Today was grocery day. As usual, the Asda van turned up with a fortnight’s worth of cakes and a tin of peas. Goodness knows what we’re supposed to do with a tin of peas; I can’t remember ordering them.

I picked up a bag of spuds that had also found their way onto our order. “Aha!” I said, “we’ve got some of those derisory potatoes.”

Shana shot me. A quizzical glance. (Eh? Oh, bit of a slip-up on the punctuation front there. That last bit should read: ‘Shana shot me a quizzical glance’. Phew, thank gawd for that!)

Anyway, it turns out they weren’t ‘derisory’ potatoes after all, but ‘desirées’. Quite frankly, I don’t mind what they’re called, so long as they don’t taste derisory.

Bangers and mash, anyone?

As part of our evening meal yesterday, we had a spicy cajun chicken pizza. I counted at least ten pieces of pepper on top of my portion, so I reckon we’re OK for at least a couple of days as far as our five-a-day regime is concerned.

“What did you think of that?” Shana asked.

“Well, it was very tasty,” I said, wiping my chops, “but I think we’d be a bit over-indulgent if we had it every week.”

“You could be right, I suppose,” supposed Shana.

“Yes. Rather than eat it regularly, it would be much better to eat it only ocajunally,” I said. I’m sure I heard Shana groan. Probably nothing serious, though; just a bit of indigestion, I would imagine, no doubt caused by over-rapid pizza intake

Since the arrival of our new computer, sadly with Vista installed, we’ve amused ourselves playing with the installed games. I’ve just played a game of Chess which has really cheesed me off. I’ve lost quite a few games, due to the fact I’m rusty, but I have won one and drawn one.

Tonight I was down to my King and Queen, I’d managed to get a pawn converted to another Queen and the computer only had a King left. So slowly I backed it into a corner for my grand win. One move to go and what happens?? The computer calls it a DRAW. Excuse me, a DRAW, I won that game fair and square…now where do I go to uninstall Vista?!!

The Senior Frumplingtons [my parents] visited last week. They arrived bearing gifts (like the Christmas story’s three Wise Men…only a bit less wise) in advance of Amy Winehouse’s — and Shana’s — birthday tomorrow.

A family gathering wouldn’t be the same without a bit of shock news, and last weekend was no exception. Mama Frumplington could not have surprised us more if she had dyed her hair purple and waltzed into the room dressed as the Pope.

“I don’t like Bourbon biscuits. I never have and I never will.”

Both Shana and I were aghast. Aghast and agog — but definitely not a-giggling! How could anyone in their right mind dislike Bourbon biccies? Oh, hang on, though. I said ‘anyone in their right mind‘, didn’t I? Guess that lets the SFs off the hook, then.

Ma ‘n’ Pa sent us some photos this week. Yet more shox: this one shows my Dad somewhere around 1947. He’s holding his father’s rifle. (Grandfather Frumplington had been in the Army during WW2 and had presumably forgotten to hand in his iron once all that nastiness with the Hun had finished.) I hope the gun wasn’t loaded at the time, but if it was, those old stories about Pop bagging a brace of pheasants and the local postman might make a lot more sense, now I come to think of it.

By the way, don’t tell anyone I told you, but Pa still has knobbly knees.

Put the flag out: we have just mown our lawn!

Correction: Shana mowed the lawn; I merely minced about with a pair of edging shears.

At one point, Shana seemed to be getting dangerously close to me with the mower. My shoes started to get nervous.

“Oi, watch out!” I yelled. “I’m wearing me best pumps!”

Like all chores, though, it felt much better once we’d got the job finished and could come in for a cuppa and a good old moan.

“That lawn’s a real nuisance to mow,” grumbled Shana. “It’s not flat. It’s bumpy — a centimetre high in some places and three inches in others.”

That’s all we need, I thought. A lawn that’s a mixture of both metric and Imperial. I wonder: will we ever cope?

It was a moment of sheer stupidity, I came downstairs yesterday carrying not one, but two glasses. Our stairs are not carpeted and I’m always very careful making my way down, especially as there is a nasty turn at the bottom where the stair narrows.

Obviously I wasn’t careful enough…just a few steps short of arriving safely in the hallway I slipped. One glass went flying, I held onto the other, and landed with a crash on to the base of my spine. My left leg calf muscle twisted and I just sat there screaming in pain.

Chris was a total sweetie, he cleared all the glass up, then once everywhere was clear, helped me to my feet, well foot, I couldn’t put my left leg down. Now I’m a stubborn old sod and I wasn’t about to spend the day limping around, so very gingerly I worked my leg until it eased up a bit.

But my back is another matter. It was already damaged from a horse riding accident when I was a kid, now I am in excrutiating pain, I can’t sit down and relax, so I have to perch. And when I stand up again, the pain shoots up my spine.

And I don’t care if this is nothing more than moaning, I have a right to moan, in fact I have a right to scream…so block your ears…AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!

That’s better

Forward planning is one of my greatest skills, as you might be able to tell from this snippet of conversation from earlier tonight:

“I’ll put some eggs on to boil and then we can have hard-boiled egg sandwiches for lunch tomorrow.”

“OK.”

(Riveting, isn’t it? I could have been a Hollywood scriptwriter.)

The eggs had been in our fridge for a week but were still a few days away from their best-before date. To look at them, though, you’d think they were still fresh; maybe it’s something to do with the feathers.