Nuts and chocolate ???

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a traditionalist when it comes to nuts and cocoa. Nuts are eaten before a meal as an appetiser, and chocolate is eaten after a meal as a guilty surrender to temptation. Phobia may be too strong a word, but I am deeply suspicious of anyone who has a penchant for eating the two together. I can't pinpoint the source of my mistrust, but I do remember eating a mixed bag of chocolate covered peanuts and raisins and feeling quite repulsed when I accidently popped a peanut rather than a raisin into my mouth.

Chocolate-covered nuts are, to borrow a phrase from an ex-boss who was describing high GI carbs when on a strict Atkins diet, "the devil's food".

It is therefore not an exaggeration to say that my relationship with my partner teetered pretty close to the edge last week when, after being sent out to buy an emergency pint of milk at 10pm, he can back with a look of intense pleasure that couldn't possibly have come from a 15 minute walk to Tesco and back in the pouring rain. He excitedly told me to close my eyes and open my hands, which I dutifully did. On opening my eyes I stared blankly at 2 small orange packets in my hand. "They're selling Reese's Pieces in Tesco!" he exclaimed, opening one packet and pouring them down his throat. When I had established what they were - small pats of peanut butter enclosed in a hard chocolate shell, I calmly opened the bin and dropped the other packet in. He was also instructed to clean his teeth at least 3 times before bed to remove all trace of the foul combination of tastes.

Unbelievably, 30+ years of this food hatred started to waver about 10 minutes ago. I have just had the most exquisite chocolate-covered almond with my coffee (cafes richard, http://www.richard.fr/) in a Parisien cafe - a wonderful explosion of a light dusting of dark cocoa over a crispy unsalted nut. This may just have helped me to put my first foot on the journey of acceptance of nuts and cocoa, but I will tread carefully and with a certain amount of trepidation ...

Is it normal for a 43 year old woman to nibble her partner's ear in public?

I have just spent a long weekend with a group of friends, including a couple who have spent the entire time groping/stroking/touching each other, which raises an interesting point: when and where is this type of behaviour acceptable?
a. Age - under 21 is OK, over 21 is not, and over 40 is a punishable offense?
b. Setting - dense urban jungle fine, remote rural wilderness fine, anywhere else not fine?
c. Company - you 2 alone fine, with family depends (you are stuck with them for the rest of your life, remember), with another couple in the same phase ok as you are unlikely to offend, with a mixed group of friends in a confined space, no?
d. Time of day - along with towed caravans on a motorway, could this activity be banned in daylight hours?
e. Proximity to others - a 'no no' if they are close enough to hear the slurping noises, could they be pursuaded to erect portable screens if the urge gets too strong?

I have been so traumatised that I am thinking of starting up a support group for others in a similar predicament. We could carry banners and wear T shirts with the old public swimming pool symbols for 'no heavy petting' on them. We could enlist Jeremy Clarkson and Janet Street Porter to our cause and maybe even persuade Lily Allen to write some strongly worded lyrics in her next album?

Observation: The 'Education, Education, Education' mantra now has to be 'Efficiency, Efficiency, Efficiency'

I feel compelled to contrast two fruitful experiences I had this week when trying to buy things, as the one was so good and the other was so bad.

A busy lunchtime last Friday I walked into the Apple store in the Bullring to buy my son's birthday present. I walked straight to the tills at the back of the store, told a friendly sales assistant what I wanted; he took the item out of a drawer next to him, already packaged, took my payment by credit card, checked my email address was correct, and told me my receipt and warranty had been sent to my inbox. The whole process took a few minutes and I was genuinely happy to hand over my money.

For the last 2 weeks I have been trying to change the billing address and name on my broadband account with an anonymous (yet colourfully named) provider. I estimate I have spent around 3 - 4 hours on the phone or on hold in that time, and on one occasion, spoke to 3 different teams, only to be asked to call the original team back and then be cut off! The jewel in the crown of this experience was when they refused to recognise my date of birth, repeating 1971 as if I was to blame for being born in that year! I am now determined to change my provider to avoid ever having to to through that again.

There is no excuse - we consumers demand value and efficiency, or we will go elsewhere!

In fact, the only time and place that over-efficiency causes problems is a the self-serve checkout at Tesco ... try to be too efficient at getting your items into the bag and the machine barks "unexpected item in the bagging area", causing you to go back and repeat the swipe again with everyone else now watching you!

PS I have just this minute received a call from the customer services team at my broadband provider saying they have just picked up the message I left on their answer phone 3 DAYS AGO and are ringing me back to help ... is it me?!

Some light relief: Reponse to Peter Ormerod's feature in Leamington Courier (9th Jan) "On Sunday or Monday? When does the week really begin?"

I read with interest, and amusement, then with increasing amazement Peter Ormerod's feature on 9th January: "On Sunday or Monday? When does the week really begin?" I do not have a strong opinion whether the week begins on a Sunday or a Monday (or on any other day, for that matter). What I find astonishing is his description of a Sunday: "Sundays serve as a long and relaxing lie-in before work." After extensive debate over this with 4 friends over a very good curry in Kineton on Friday night, I feel compelled to give a more balanced representation of a typical Sunday, based on an average family of 4 with 2 working parents and 2 school aged children, leading our lives as New Labour and The Media would encourage us to do so:

1. Monday to Friday is spent working a 40 - 60 hour week in a desperate attempt to avoid redundancy, remembering to send children into school each day with the right combination of swimming, football and dance kit, making nutritionally balanced Jamie Oliver-standard packed lunches every night, helping with homework, trips to the doctor/dentist/optician/hairdresser, doing the bare minimum of washing and ironing to keep everyone in uniform for the week and maybe, if you're very lucky, a drink with friends or a trip to the gym.

2. Saturday and Sunday are therefore the only days left for: supermarket shopping, sport, washing, drying and ironing clothes, tidying and cleaning the house, preparing home-cooked meals (Nigella or Gordon standard this time), taking children to and from parties, starting the school project, paying household bills, tackling the pile of post on the doormat, planning the summer camping holiday, sending a birthday card to Aunty Marge, cleaning school shoes, replacing broken light bulbs, building a 1,000 piece lego set and making origami paper aeroplanes with your son and playing shopkeepers with your daughter ... with maybe a sneaky 20 mins on facebook to remind yourself that you do have adult friends out there. Maybe it's me.

Maybe we should be able to fit all of 2. above into one day, but I don't think I'm alone in suggesting that would be a bit like trying to stuff an octopus into a string bag. I would love to canvass opinion (as we are not allowed to use the word 'vote' any more) as to whether Sunday is a "long relaxing lie in" or in fact an inevitable day of rushing around to get the chores done before the whole cycle starts again on a Monday morning?

Let me know what you think!