De-caff Overdose

I’m still suffering with the effects of my bout of River Trent flu, so in order not to exasperate (or is it exacerbate?) it I take the bus into work.

Once at work it dawns on me that the dodgy stomach I have at the moment might have nothing to do with the River Trent. It could in fact be something to do with the God awful de-caff coffee I’ve been forced to drink because the proper stuff has ran out and no one with the authority to get more (e.g. a cash and carry card) can be arsed to go because they don’t drink coffee.

You can’t win with the de-caff. Make it with one spoon full it just tastes of... well nothing, just brown water, which is far too close to the River Trent and brings back bad memories. If you make it with more to try and get a coffee ‘kick’ out of it, it becomes an even more nasty substance. Which if you leave to cool, starts to congeal and mutate. I think this must be rotting my stomach lining. I make myself a cup of tea.

The usual email from L checking on my health is slow arriving this morning, probably because she assumes I've take a 'safe' option into work (the bus) and possibly because she's still googling my symptoms. I google de-caff overdose without success.

The wife of one of my Survival Of The Fittest team mates has binned his race T-shirt, saying it was too dirty to put in her washing machine. Durr. What are washing machines for? Women can be so cruel, thankfully L isn’t that harsh. L is actually appalled that he let her do that and asks if he bins her clothes if he doesn't like them. I suggest that course of action to him and he looks at me, horrified, as if any such attempt would lead to his missus doing something unmentionable with a blunt knife.

After work, I take the boys on the park for a brief ball session but within fifteen minutes of arriving it’s too dark to continue, as I can no longer see the random places that MD decides to drop his ball in. So I take it off him and suggest we just ‘walk’, like owner and man’s best friends. MD looks appalled at the thought of that and heads off for a game of squirrel pinball instead. This is where he runs up to a tree to see if a squirrel is in residence, when he finds no one is at home he pings off to the next tree, then the next one, etc etc ad infinitum. It's quite funny to watch really and it wears him out a treat.

Back home, there's a new chef in our kitchen. Son. Blimey. He's cooking spag bol but it’s a meal for one which frustrates Daughter who has many a time cooked something up for him. He does though thoughtfully leave her half a pack of raw mince for her tea. We can’t afford to let them fend for themselves too often, that pack of mince usually feeds all four of us.

There’s also a recount on the result of the ‘battle of the router’, Son says the signal is intermittent upstairs. Time to call in the experts. Right on queue there’s a knock on the door, my mate might be able to shed some light on this before we head off out. Seems I haven’t made a mess of setting it up but one setting is tweaked. Just have to wait to see if that improves things.

We head into town and for the most exhausting pizza I’ve ever eaten. We both try one of Pizza Express's Romana Pizzas, the bases of which are ‘stretched thinner, making your pizza bigger and crispier, so the bold flavours really stand out’. Flavour wise they’re fine, great even but the bases are so thin and crisp you could tile your house with them and take an, arm breaking, age to carve up or perhaps it’s the naff knives they gave us. Don’t order one unless they give you a steak knife.