Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

How'd that happen?

Is there anything special going on in Canada in the next few weeks? A holiday or an event or something? I'm struggling to find a reason for why the old dinosaur is coming out of his cave to go abroad.

But. To begin. I got a carrot cake cake mix over the weekend. I saw it last week and developed a craving for it later on in the week, so this week I got it. I don't know what it is but there's something delicious about carrot cake. Usually I veer towards a sickly chocolate cake but I love carrot cake too. I'm not sure if my tastes have changed as I've grown or whether I have always loved carrot cake. I don't remember eating it as a child. The first time I remember eating one and recognising it as a carrot cake was in secondary school, oddly enough.

So. Having a craving for something filling and sweet but not sickly I baked it today. It required two cake tins and we only have one but I was grateful to find that my round pie tin is the same size, just shallower.

I love the frosting of carrot cake but I wasn't in the mood to look up how to make it. That's the whole point of buying a mix, you just throw some liquids in, mix it up and bake it. The company recommended serving it with their brand of butter cream icing so, with lack of a better alternative, I did. Not exactly a big mistake but a sickly one. The cake itself was good though. I've decided that if I get that mix again I'll make a proper frosting because that sickly butter cream doesn't cut it. Not with the subtle tastiness of a carrot cake. Fairy cakes perhaps. Chocolate cake perhaps but not carrot.

While this cake was baking I got a call from Napoleon. We last spoke a few weeks ago when I told him his AA card had arrived (that's AA as in Automobile Association, a British motoring organization, not AA as in Alcoholics Anonymous, a worldwide fellowship of persons recovering from alcoholism).

He said he was busy so he wasn't sure when he'd come to get it. I don't really care. I've given him a strict command that he must notify us of any impending visit at least one day in advance.

He still hasn't been told about mum's...job issue. To be fair I don't feel he has much of a right to know unless it directly affects him, which it doesn't. We've been dreading his impending visit due to this fact. He'll be annoyed that we didn't tell him, so we're thinking of telling him that it only happened last month, then he won't kick up such a stink as he would if we told him how long it had really been.

Anyway. He calls today, when my battery is low, to tell me he probably won't be in contact for two weeks. Then he tells me it's because he's going to Canada for that time and calls and texts long distance are expensive. Don't really care about that, I barely read his daily weather report text anyway. I guess he was also worried about if I tried to contact him. Unless a serious emergency pops up I doubt not calling or texting him for two weeks will be a problem.

I do wonder why he of all people is going abroad, even if it is to Canada (by the way, when I say that I mean no disrespect to Canada. It's just that as far as other countries go it seems to be a pretty safe bet for him. He's bound to find food that he wouldn't class as foreign and be unable to eat (he's a very picky eater) and I doubt the climate should disagree with him too much and he shouldn't encounter language barriers. I'm not sure he'd need jabs either though don't quote me on that as I've never been abroad in my life so I'm not sure which countries are jab free). I didn't even know he had a passport. He tells me he applied for one and it came through.

He claims he'll be sightseeing but the manner in which he says things can sometimes make you wonder if he's serious or not. Maybe he is going sightseeing or maybe he has an ulterior motive that he doesn't want to tell me about. I just hope it's not a serious ulterior motive.

That's why I asked if there might be anything special going on in Canada soon that would entice this "hate's leaving the country, really can't take him anywhere, might as well just leave him behind, would order chicken and chips in a Chinese restaurant" kind of guy. Mum tells me that actually happened once or twice when they went out for meals with their friends in their youth, way before my time.

He doesn't even like garlic bread for goodness sake. One birthday in my teens we went to Pizza Hut, just the three of us (although he'd long since moved out by then) and had the regular kind of meal mum and I would have if we went. Garlic bread with cheese (love it. Really who doesn't like garlic bread) as a starter and a pizza. I tried to get Napoleon to eat the starter with us while waiting for the pizza but he refused, saying he doesn't like garlic. Wow. And up until then I thought pretty much everyone who goes there must have garlic bread.

If you think I'm a fussy eater, trust me I'm nothing compared to him.

Anyway. Got off topic. That's the interesting news at the moment.

Bluebiird out.

Mystery solved. He has an acquaintance in Canada and will be staying with them.