One Day Late...and the mash saga!

Well, I managed to get to the gym this morning after having intended to have got down yesterday. I did, instead, spend the whole day at home waiting for a phone call that could have come at any time, but infact was not made until 6.15pm. How frustrating!!! At least I had stuff I could do at home thanks to the french (red wine) diet - and for once it didn't involve the red wine bit, I actually killed my abs in the living room.

The workout this morning but was worthwhile but actally really hurt, but it didn't hurt until about 10-15 minutes after I walked out of the gym. I spent an hour on an interval training programme on the cross trainer and I felt really good after, until my legs went numb! I'm guessing it was just a delayed reaction to the work I put them through but it would have been hilarious had they done it as I stepped off the cross-trainer. Admittedly it would not have been funny for the staff at the gym and would not have done my street-cred (what's left anyway) any good.

I then went on to have an in-depth discussion with the customer services desk at Tesco about the quality of thier potatoes! Anyone who knows my household knows that the boy exists on a diet mainly comprising mash and peas. Anyway, as a result I thought I woud be crafty and buy value potatoes because, let's face it, potatoes are potatoes right?

Wrong! How wrong could I be? Being the loving, dutiful mother I am, I made him mash and peas last week and I made them exactly the same way as I have made mash potatoes for the past year and a bit. I did start to wonder when the consistency of the mash just did not look right. Do you know what I mean, when you just KNOW that something is not right? Anyhow, I keep mashing and adding milk and butter and still it did not look right.

I then tried to serve it up and my word... what a mess! As I put the spoon into the saucepan, it very nearly bounced right back out at me, just like in a cartoon. When I eventually managed to get the spoon into the mash mixture, it all virtually came up on one great gloopy mess. Now, I use the word "gloopy" very carefully here, as the mash now had the consistency of very thick but rubbery wallpaper paste. It was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen in my life.

When trying to deposit it from the spoon to the plate, it just wouldn't move. It bounced from the spoon very nearly touching the plate, almost as if it had decided that bungy jumping may be a really great idea at this point. As I lowered the spoon to the plate it did then stay there, but as I moved the spoon around the plate, so the gloopy mess followed behind. Figuring that I was probably already onto a loser with dinner, I went to do a taste test.

As I put my finger in it really was glue like and when I tasted it it seemed fine taste wise, but obviously my brain had interrupted and overrided my common sense function as my taste buds then decided it was awful. But more was to come... after I had informed a very hungry seven year old that mash was off and it was soup or nothing, I tried to throw the mash away. Again an easier concept in the imagination stage than actually executing the move.

As I tried to deposit the mash it sort of glooped off the plate, hovered in mid-air and almost bounced like a baby in one of those contraptions you attached to the door frame before landing in the bottom of the bin with a soft but meaningful thud! I also managed (and I don't know how) to get it on my fingers. Flicking it off reminded me completely of the scene in Ghostbusters where the Bill Murray character had just been told to collect a specimen of snot - I had to use that same precise flick movement with my hands and fingers to get the mash off me.

By this time, with an alledgedly STARVING 7 year old, I had tears running down my face and could hardly stand-up let alone speak. He couldn't see what was so funny and then did the teenage thing of going off in a sulk, embarrased that his Mum had a sense of humour and found flicking gloopy mash highly, highly amusing.

Anyway, in order to convince aforementioned supermarket to give me a refund I regaled the whole story in an attempt to bore them into submission as the lady was telling me that I had obviously done something wrong and that potatoes are just potatoes! I eventually won, when I noticed her glaze over!

I'm really not sure what that has to do with my training regime, China or anything really but hopefully it gives you a smidgen of light relief.

Don't forget to visit my fundraising site if you haven't already (http://www.justgiving.com/sarahpearce-in-trinsic) and thanks to those that have, I really appreciate it.