Elevenses

Still drizzling. Blah.

I'm having my Elevenses (very thinly sliced polish sausage, cream cheese on toast, the last of the coffee) and reading blogs, having spent the morning on the telephone. I like the idea of having a few stopped clocks around the house, deliberately stopped at specific times, to be able to say as Winnie did "Ah, look, time for tea."

In related news I decided yesterday that my resolution not to eat cakes and cookies was not an absolute prohibition but a restriction, and that I may therefore indulge myself in some of the above once a month. I went to my usual patisserie and bought my usual slice of chocolate cream cake. It was appalling: the "cream" was synthetic, the "chocolate" frosting pure cocoa powder, the cake itself tasted only of sugar. And yet it was the same as always, I recognized the flavour and realized that it had always tasted this way. What I loved about afternoon cakes and cookies was the ritualized indulgence, not the food itself. Interesting.