Meals on Wheels

Because of daily communting to and from work, and the 2-3 hours every day spent at the stables, we don't get to spend a lot of time together in the evenings. From Monday to Friday dinner is usually a bit of a rushed affair with not a lot of thought put into it, as we're both on our way to something else. Not that we eat badly, there's just not a lot of time for creative cooking during the week. And, if we did, it woud just create more stress further down the chain. The tempation is to go with fast food but then we'd likely end up with less energy and that would just add to the situation. Anyway, about 4 weeks back we hit upon a solution. or rather the solution hit upon us. A local supplier made contact with us who makes and sells homecooked dinners, packed up into single portions. Like the stuff that they sell in the supermarkets, but with a bit more of a human touch. We did a bit of quick adding and worked out that it wasn't a whole lot dearer than cooking ourselves, but we would actually get time to eat and know we were eating reasonable meals. So we figured that we would take a chance and buy in 2 working weeks of meals.

The man duely turned up at the appointed time with 2 large cartons. We put one week into our fridge, and the second week in the freezer. The next evening when we came home we threw 2 portions into the microwave and away we went. I have to say that it was very enjoyable. Fresh tasting and quite a variety. The only complaint we had, and it wasn't really a complaint, was that the portions were very large. We are usually both pretty hungry after a day slogging away, so we weren't grumbling. We were very impressed by the quality of the food, the quality of the service and, above all, the generous helpings. We decided that we were on to a pretty good winner and rang to order another batch. The supplier was happy to provide, but was a little bit confused about us ordering again so quickly. He thought that we were only 2 people living in the house. Which we were. It turns out that the generous portions we were gladly polishing off, were designed for 2 people, and not for one person. Cue instant embarassment from 2 glutenous pigs.

So anyway, the next package arrived a few days later. I made sure not be around so that I wouldn't have to face the guy with lasagne still stuck in my hair. I was interested to see what a "half" portion was going to look like, but surprisingly it wasn't a lot smaller than the previous "double" portions we had been enjoying. Maybe he felt a bit sorry for us. There was one minor flaw, mind. My wife is terribly allergic to fish of any description. When we ordered the first time, we asked if we could avoid fish meals. This time around we asked for the same thing. For some reason he must have had the notepad upside down as half of the delivered meals were fish meals. It wasn't a complete disaster, as I can eat fish just fine. We just have to be careful not to share any plates or utensils and, if using the microwave oven, we heat the fish meal last. The end result was, however, that I ate fish every night for 2 weeks, while my wife dined out on a lovely variety of dishes. Fingers crossed we get a fish free delivery next time. I like fish, just not 2 weeks in a row.

So now we've found a lazy but effective solution. We manage to sit down together in the early evening now for nearly 15 minutes before springing out the door again. Add that to the 30 minute bus commute to and from work, and you can almost call it a relationship. Probably for the best, any longer and she might figure out how annoying I am.