Decisions. Decisions.

I was just wondering whether I ought to buy a julienne cutter for my vegetable preparation and make them into strips, or just keep using a knife like I have been doing for most of my life. There are too many decisions needed these days. It does my 'ed in!

My Uncle Fergie who was a cook on the North Sea trawlers used to stick a whole cabbage in a pot and boil it. Tasted all right to me, and as he used to say, the maggots added extra protein. Don't suppose he'd ever heard of a julienne cutter.

Life was so much simpler in the old days, and that's a fact!

Uncle Fergie would shove a whole load of carrots in with the cabbage too, and onions. Never used to bother peeling anything. Course in those days vegetables used to have mud on them. Uncle Fergie said the mud was full of minerals and shouldn't be washed off.

Never knew a trawlerman to get food poisoning. This might have been due to the amount of alcohol they drank, but mostly it was because they built up immunity due to eating food that wasn't too over prepared.

Uncle Fergie's food tasted great. I reckon he was a culinary genius in the galley. Makes Jamie Oliver look like a right poof. Am I allowed to say that? And that Gordon Ramsey? Tough guy? Well Uncle Fergie would kick his arse no bother.

I just can't picture Uncle Fergie cutting vegetables into strips in the teeth of a force 10 North Sea gale.

Anyway I think I shall carry on using a knife. What was I thinking?

Parking.

I was working on my van at the bottom of the drive, when Tricia suddenly appeared. She seemed very flustered and indignant.

"Look at this," she says, and hands me a note. "Bloody cheek," she goes on, "I have been parking there for twenty seven years!"

I read the note. "Well Tricia," I say, "It seems like you have been parking in someones private drive for all those years."

"But why would they suddenly write me a note after all these years?"

"Maybe new people have moved into the house and they aren't so easy going?"

"I shall keep parking there," she says, "I shall write them a note asking for permission."

"They might not want to give you permission."

"Don't see why not, there's lots of room in their drive."

Just at that moment, a man rides by on a bicycle, "Good morning," he calls cheerily, and Tricia and I both wave and wish him good morning back.

"Who was that?" Tricia asks.

"That's the new community policeman," I tell her.

"Oh crikey," she says, "we shouldn't be talking to him."

"Why not?" I ask.

"Last week he told me off for parking in that private road at the back of the co-op!"

Tricia and me look at each other, and we both burst out laughing.