What I really, really want is a Takeaway...

...or a meal out in a restaurant... or for someone to cook for me for a change... ho hum.

And on we go.  I was determined that we don't do a big shop this year until there's nothing left that we can make a meal of.  Of course, I will have to buy fresh bread and milk, things for the school packed lunches, fruit for their breaktimes, I will buy fresh veg to accompany any meat I have, I will buy meat to go with pasta or rice or couscous or vegetables... but the cupboard is going to have to be bare before this Mother Hubbard toddles off to the supermarkets again.  If tea is beans on toast, then beans on toast it is.

I shouldn't complain, it's not actually that dire, put into context.  It's food.  At least we have it.  At least we have a choice.  My youngest was watching a charity advert concerning the third world with a look of abject horror the other day, asking me what the stuff the baby was eating was.  The narrator answered for me - flour and water.  I could see the cogs turning in his mind as he thought - that's the glue we do crafts with when the real stuff runs out and Mum's being a cheapskate.  I think I could see his six year old conscience being pricked, as he realised this is what I keep ranting on about when he's looking at his tea plate as if I'd emptied the compost bin onto it.

And then my husband goes and hits me with...

Him - Apparently there's some extreme weather system going to be hitting us in the next 10 - 30 days.

Me - Define 'us' and can you be a little bit more specific time-wise?

'Us' apparently is not just confined to the weather system directly above our house (believe me, it more or less exists), but the UK in general, and the minute he mentioned Russian weather systems and rain turning to snow I'd already tuned him out and was thinking about Burger King.  Especially as I had spied he was holding a booklet of Burger King coupons that had come in the newspaper today.   Burger King has this hold over me, this strange allure that turns me into a Homer Simpson-eque type person.  Drooling, incoherent, with the uncanny ability to eat more in one sitting than I would do in three days.  I decide I will have to - for my own sake - shred the coupons.  Remove the temptation.

So tea was so uninspirational I didn't even bother to take a photo (was that a hurrah?).  Sausages in the oven to colour them (nothing worse than anaemic sausages in a casserole!).  Cooked up some carrots and the last parsnips (yay!  See you next December guys!) and added them to the pan with the sausages, a sliced onion, a sliced red and yellow pepper, a tin of baked beans and a tin of chopped tomatoes.  Bunged in a little water, a vegetable stock cube and a couple of bay leaves.

It was pleasant, nothing to write home about, I think someone ate a bay leaf...  and already I am struggling with my goal.  Especially now I know the threat of bad weather lurks.  I wouldn't say I am a panic buyer but I do like to be prepared, just in case, a family of six can get through some food, I tell you!  Best see how I get on over the next few days then.

Sorry for the rambling post!  (Aren't they all, though?)