Eau, deer

The winter has seemed to have passed us by this year. Apart from one or two minus 20C days, it has been quite acceptable. Last year we had snow till way passed April. This year I may even be able to succumb to my faux middle-class roots and go and plant tomatoes (which generally seems to be just a posh way of feeding the local deer population).

I was not impressed by the local animal husbandry. The neighbour came home just before Christmas at about 1am and found a pile of four deer at the bottom of the road. When he called the police to complain, he was told it was actually the police who'd done it, and it was part of the culling program. As we only have 5 deer (well, one, obvs) which wander about, rather than a swathe of rampaging wildebeest across the savannah, I thought that this was a bit odd, until I saw the price of venison in the supermarket.

I was there  in the local Wholefoods last week. Wholefoods is a bit like M&S....overpriced organic produce selling to gullible mums, who otherwise just frisby Vitamin C in the form of jaffa cakes to their kids. At the check-out, I'd unloaded my basket onto the conveyor-belt behind this well-turned out lady in front of me (ie she had a nice perm, and you couldn't see her gun), and put down The Barrier of Death.

I suddenly realised that I needed to pop back to the veg department and grab some frisee (or something else I would probably not recognise by sight). When I came back, she was just paying up....and I saw she'd actually helped herself to the two bottles of Pelligrino and some parmesan from my section. She looked at me. I looked at her. We did the unspoken "I know you know I know etc", and she looked so horrified I just could not bring myself to say anything.

Serves me right when tap-water and cheddar would do just as well, but I just knew she would carry that guilt with her all day.