So today was very quiet and probably quite boring from many perspectives. We slept in this morning – praying at the alter of the Holy Comforter as our old assistant rector used to call it – and got some much needed rest after the late night with my family on Friday night. Breakfast was a feast of long dreamt of favorites: sausage rolls, bacon rolls, rolls and jam – see a pattern here? The most basic of Scottish foods – the ubiquitous morning roll – is something I have never seen duplicated anywhere else and is what my family misses most! Of course they are now off limits for me but I got some GF substitutes (which really don’t come close but are tasty nonetheless) and had an egg and bacon roll along with the rest of the family.
As it was raining (sigh), we were in no hurry to go anywhere and after watching some Top Gear on the telly, wandered into town to take care of a few errands. Sunday’s are no longer a consumer wasteland: many shops are now open and my spending-frenzy teens were happy to hit the Thistle Centre to wait out the showers. The primary goal was to find a replacement for the 4 year old cell phone which is a usability nightmare and desperately needs to be chucked in the bin. Gillian had a pay-as-you-go T-mobile phone that she doesn’t use anymore since she inherited my mother’s phone so we got a new sim card for the “red phone” and can now happily retire the “moo phone” – don’t ask!
Then we picked up my mother-in-law for lunch and gave her the choice of eateries. I confess I was hoping for a nice Sunday lunch at a pub somewhere but her choice was an American-style chain restaurant called Frankie and Benny’s where they play 50’s crooner music and serve… Italian food. Of all the types of cuisine, she has to pick the one that is least suited to my particular dietary restriction. Not out of malice of course, but more out of ignorance: it doesn’t occur to people who don’t deal with this everyday what issues lurk at such places. It turned out that I could have a baked potato with cheese and sour cream. That’s it. No salad unless it was without dressing or anything else. C’est la vie….
Then on to annoy more relatives. We wandered over to Bridge of Allan to visit Auntie Jean and Uncle Jimmy which is always entertaining. Jean is my mother-in-law’s sister and the two of them still cackle like school girls when they get together. An entertaining afternoon was had by all and my wonderful teeangers sat patiently and listened to the old people chat while drinking tea and eating chocolate biscuits – except me of course.
Then a quick stop at the shop to pick up a few things and I got to make a meal where I could eat everything! GF pasta with bolognese sauce, salad, GF french bread and a chocolate gateau with ice cream and strawberry sauce (mine was, of course, not the same as I served everyone else but tasty just the same!) The weather had cleared and it was a lovely and sunny afternoon so we were able to sit out on the patio for a bit before dinner.
A fairly typical Sunday I’d say except for the part where Frank had to find his sunglasses to run his mum home at 10:30 p.m. 🙂
/san/
Pedometer: 8088 steps or just over 3 miles. Boy are we slugs…. ;l-)
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