An intermission

I'm interrupting my “gadding about” on location – there's more to come shortly. In case it had escaped your notice Christmas is on the doorstep – again!

In the supermarkets it begins earlier each year, or so it seems to me. Aided and abetted by adverts on the tv showing delectable delicacies designed to tempt us – what did we do before “party food”?

How many of us succumb and ram the freezer within an inch of its life with all manner of stuff that, hand on heart, we will either serve and be disappointed since it all tastes the same, or jiggle it around the freezer for two weeks and then throw it out in the New Year?

The party food fashion reminds me of the idiom “Keeping up with the Joneses” - I suppose you have to be a certain age to remember the phrase – here's my useless bit of information – did you know that it came from a comic strip of the same name which ran from 1913 to 1940?

Wearing a wry smile of course, I can't help but picture a gathering where your party food is scrutinised within a inch of its life by guests, with the imaginary, cartoon style bubble above their head saying “mine's better than yours and it cost more!”

Please don't think I'm being a party pooper nor that I'm saying you shouldn't buy festive treats – just that you give a little more thought ahead of the game to what you buy and what you'll use, rather than a trolley dash hurling in, at random, stuff you can't possibly live without, elbowing other shoppers out of the way, because you have to have the last exorbitantly priced product left on the shelf!

Lets see what we can do.