This week, my son turned 25. Where did the time go? He makes me feel old lol. We’re making an Indian meal – very mild chicken Malay (pineapple) curry for me, hot beef curry for my son, with samosas I’d made previously, and maybe I’ll make onion bhajis too. I’ve made a vegan coconut cheesecake at his request. I’ve tasted it whilst it’s chilling and it puts me in mind of coconut ice cream. Cheesecake it is not! His choice though I wish he’d gone with our usual sunken chocolate cake.

His Dad sent an email, asked again for his bank details (that ship has sailed) and then went on about what they’re doing rather than ask how our son is doing. Some things don’t change…

My main ‘issue’ with vegetarian/vegan food, is meat replacements lack ‘bite’ and I always feel like I’m not getting enough protein. Could be in my head, though it is what it is. With that in mind, my son did some online searching and found that Seitan is high in protein, though almost impossible to get in the UK. So, we made our own! We made it into ‘steaks’, made some BBQ sauce to go with them, added sweet potato wedges, salad; delicious! Filling, high in protein, a good 'bite', and very tasty. It was a bit of effort, though we now have 2 more ‘steaks’ in the freezer for an easy meal another time. So, a success.

Much faffing around with overtime this past week. I’d agreed to work 2 hours over the one day, though the previous day, this was cancelled due to the store being very quiet. Ok, it happens. The day of the cancelled overtime, however, a colleague asked if I’d been asked to work on. Say what now? People hadn’t shown up, so overtime was back on, but did they ask me? Did they hell! I was so cross and thought this had been handled very unfairly. After I’d logged out of the system the supervisor threw me a bone and offered me 30 minutes extra. I won’t post my thoughts on that, but you can guess, I didn’t stay.

The following day, at very short notice, I was asked to work on. I declined, as did many others. I don’t know how much they think they can mess us about and still expect us to work over, often with very little notice, when they cancel overtime that had been agreed on.

I’d booked a few days off, that tied in with my son’s Birthday, and the one day walked into town to do a little shopping. It was depressing to see so many closed down shops. It’s not been great here anyway, but this virus, and forced lock down could be the death of the ‘High Street.’ I still think the government should have let smaller stores stay open, with limited numbers allowed in, and mandatory face masks. If they’ve tried to kill off small businesses, they may have succeeded. There was a market on, and food fair though I’d gone in for 9am, and very little was open. I think the appalling weather will put many off visiting though some stalls did smell good.

It’s cold again here, with showers, and heavy rain thrown in too for good measure with high winds. I don’t recall the month of May being so bad. I feel like a drooping flower; I need sunshine! Thank goodness we already take a vitamin D supplement because we ain’t getting it from sunshine this month!

Garden: I saw a Jay this week, in the neighbours’ trees. Only the second time that I’ve seen a Jay. Beautiful bird! We’re so lucky, that with so many trees nearby, we see so much variety of birds. Squirrels too, and I’ve seen a fox, twice, living here. I’ll be sad if we do have to move.

Take care. I hope the weather improves for all of us.