Farmer's Market

Phil's been on holiday all this week, so of course it's been raining, and we haven't done much of anything. Can't really go anywhere, since his folks are on some monstrously long cruise around South America, and I'm keeping an eye on their house for them. Bee has about ten million houseplants, and it takes forever to water them all. Plus, they have this new alarm system, which is so stupidly easy to turn on and off -- it's this little gizmo like that I've Fallen & I Can't Get Up thing, you just press one button to turn the alarm off and the other to turn it on -- that I am, naturally, frightened that it's just too easy to use, and that I'm somehow going to accidentally set the alarm off, and then I'll have to deal with the security company and possibly the cops, and man, I just don't need that. My utter, animal fear of authority can be triggered by fucking rent-a-cops, for God's sake. How lame is that?

Yesterday, though, it was good. Flash woke me up at the ungodly time of 6.20 a.m., by headbutting me and purring loudly until I finally gave up and went downstairs and pelleted him. See, that's how Flash gives you a wake-up call; he's all friendly and affectionate and TOTALLY FUCKING PERSISTENT, like a furry, benign terminator or something. Pix will stand just out of reach and howl at you, or she'll do this thing where she sits right next to you and pick-pick-picks at you with one of her nasty little claws until you just give in, because you're going to lose your mind and possibly some blood if you don't. Flash, though, he's just annoying you by an excess of likeabilty and joie de vivre, so you're the bad guy if you get pissed off, the little bastard.

Anyway, I got up, and the sun was just dazzling. Beautiful, clear blue sky, a few fast-moving fluffy clouds, very nice. The local farmers' market is on the last Friday of the month down at B'head market, which is one of those big all-purpose markets, where you can get everything from eggs to orange pleather stilettos. The farmers, though, they only come in once a month to sell their expensive and gorgeous organic stuff to the vile, semi-moneyed hippie scum like us. Not that we're particularly rich, mind, it's just that when I look at how much money I spend at that monthly market, I feel kind of ill. Yeah, I smoke, but I'm afraid to eat meat that doesn't come directly from the hands of the guy who raised and slaughtered it, and who can give me chapter and verse on its pleasant, if brief, existence.

The market traders are all really nice, though. You get your usual run of meat/poultry farmers and butchers from Cheshire and North Wales, and your basic organic vegetable farmers (not much beyond root veg and brassicas at the moment, sadly), but also small, independent brewers and cheese-makers, a man who sells the most beautiful olives, stalls selling homemade chutney and jam and bread, all of which I make myself anyway, but I still love looking at their stuff, and then, occasionally, a real oddball, like the Catalan lady who had made a bunch of Spanish food, and was selling it. I bought a potato and caramelized onion tortilla from her, and brought it home for lunch. I thought it was lovely, but Phil's not mad keen on potatoes, and he was somewhat less enthusiastic than me.

Shortly after I got home, the rain came back, and after filling my freezer with all the meat I bought, I went and took a nap. No spring lambs haunted my dreams, thank God.