Pass the.. er... um...

I don't know if it was a result of research by scientists or just the opinion of a newspaper feature writer, but it was suggested this week that the best time for married couples (and unmarried couples as well, I suppose) to chat, discuss matters and make decisions is over breakfast.  Whether it was a group of scientists or one solitary writer who came up with that premise, they or he had never visited my house at breakfast time.  I suppose when we were in the first flush of married life, when the stars of love were still in our eyes, we might have taken breakfast together - but that was many years since.  For much of my working life I had left home long before the Old Bat placed foot on floor.  Things are not so very much different now I'm retired.  I rouse myself to shower and dress, then see to the dog and take out yesterday's newspaper and any other items destined for recycling while the kettle boils and the coffee machine burbles.  Pour the tea and take it upstairs.  After that, I eat my muesli (or bite-sized Shredded Wheat depending on which I am "on" at the time), drink a cup of coffee and glance at the front page of the paper.  Madam might get up while I am washing up the few bits or - as seems to be happening increasingly frequently - she might decide she wants another half an hour in bed which usually means another hour at least.

Breakfast when we are in France is different.  Over there I still take her a cup of tea and then I read a book while I drink mine.  Once the Old Bat has reached the shower room I switch on the coffee machine, then I wait until she is getting dressed before I depress the toaster in the hope - usually a vain hope - that the toast will pop just as Madam enters the kitchen for breakfast.  That was the general scheme of things up until the visit before last.  It was then that the extra half-hour business started and on our last visit it happened every day.  So I started eating my breakfast toast and marmalade in splendid isolation before driving off to buy fresh bread for lunch.

But I can't imagine us holding any sort of meaningful discussion at the breakfast table even if we were there together.  The Old Bat just isn't a morning person.  If we could hear each other over the crunching of cereal and the scraping of the burnt bits of the toast, any conversation would probably run along disjointed lines akin to this:

"Pass the... er... um..., please."

"Good heavens, look at this!" (reading the newspaper). "Sorry, what was that you said?"

"I've dropped a pill."

"The butter?  Oh, you want the marmalade.  What colour?"

"Mind the thingy doesn't get it."

"It's alright, the dog doesn't like marmalade but she'll grab your toast if you drop that...  There's a repeat of that show we liked tonight.  But it starts at half seven so I'll record it, shall I?"

~~~~~

I see that a 12 month ago, over the Christmas and New Year period and well into January, I was taking the Old Bat to her oxygen treatment sessions on Fridays and would grab the opportunity to take pictures in the Shoreham area.  Like this one of Lancing College, seen from Mill Hill across the River Adur. The Gothic revival chapel is said to be the largest school chapel in the world. The school was founded in 1848.