Sue’s World

Well, I’ve added up the week’s shopping and it seems to be about the same as it would have been at the supermarket. It’s difficult to be sure because I am buying things I don’t usually buy but which will last more than a week so at the end of the month I will calculate properly. I will also try and take into account the electricity and gas costs

We ran out of cat food and our cats have been eating our free range chicken! On Wednesday, proposed shopping day, I will talk to the butcher about something cheaper.

I understand now why the women of my childhood needed set days for their household tasks, it’s really the only way to manage when you make everything yourself and have to buy things at several different shops. It was even more the case forty and more years ago when owning a dishwasher, tumble drier or automatic washing machine would have been unimaginable to most housewives.

I’ve made pate, hummus, soup, cheese straws, mayonnaise, flapjacks, rice crispy cakes and yogurt as well as the meals we have eaten. I’ve shopped in Lay-it-on-berzooms and Tinkle market and spent hours researching products and principles on the Internet. I’ve boned a chicken and fainted at the price of line caught haddock but all in all I believe that this lifestyle is probably sustainable and by the end of the week I actually sat down to read The Week – the nearest I ever get to a newspaper.

My main challenge now is not eating too much. My waistline has already expanded as I have given up artificial sweetener, reduced calorie mayonnaise and lite ice cream in preference to their fuller fat homemade alternatives. My evening glass (well, half bottle really) of wine has been accompanied by Cheddar cheese nibbles dipped in a dip made from homemade mayonnaise mixed with Greek Easiyo yoghurt and smoked garlic – yum, and my morning toast has been topped with a generous layer of organic, free range butter.

Next week I am heading back to Slimming World for a bit of motivation but I will need to rethink my eating habits now that low fat, high fibre alternatives to my favourite foods are so difficult to find. Will my butcher be able to provide low fat sausages? Can I get low fat Easiyo? Will there be time to bake a wholemeal loaf for me and a white one for Whizz and Mavis? Watch this space.

Accepted wisdom states that if you don’t want your children to watch something on television then just switch it off but that isn’t easy when the television and family room are upstairs and the kitchen is downstairs.

When your child has done his or her homework, had a chat and wants to watch the television and you, being an earth mother, have to wash up all the pans and dishes you have used to create the evening’s repast, you’re not going to say “No, you can’t watch that rubbish.” you’re going to think “Good idea, give me a bit of time to clear up.”

I have no problem with American children’s television as such. I love The Simpsons and Recess but what I really hate are programs dubbed with an English accent but in American-English. Please, if it’s American, use American words and an American voice or change the script and make it proper English with an English voice over.

The worst example of an English voice with an American script is a ridiculous children’s program called Higglytown Heroes. The cast comprises an unlikely assortment of Russian doll style characters which clonk about with a squirrel that gives them advice. See I told you, it’s ridiculous.

I’m sure the U.S. version sounds a lot less silly but when the squirrel, with a female, very BBC accent says “Hello you all?” or suggests “Let’s figure this out together” it sounds absurd, and irritating.

It beggars belief that the, clearly well spoken, voice-over artists would not have pointed out the inconsistency between accent and words. How can they bear to use those words? Does America want to control our language as well as our defense and finances? No, I suspect the reason for the inappropriate language could be something much more mundane like, it would cost more to translate the script, or even, well, ignorance?