Here in this hotel they also serve a range of “tartas”, all consisting of a thin layer of sponge cake, a filling if something soft and fluffy, another layer of sponge cake and usually iced with chocolate.Today there was gipsy's arm - brazo de gitano - a kind of chocolate swiss roll. Okay if you like sponge cake, I suppose.
Yesterday’s offering was “tarta de trufa”, which Phil declined in favour of an ice cream on the grounds that it was probably “mousse-ified”, which it was indeed. Pleasant enough, it was not something I would have gone out of my way for. Maybe it would be better chilled. Very prettily presented, of course.Both of us avoid flan (crème caramel) because it was served so often in the boarding house where we stayed as students long years ago. And, of course, there were the flan-eating competitions - enough to put anybody off that dessert for life!
Our daughter posted a photo on Facebook of her small daughter jn the bath with her coat on! Yes! With her coat on. She cried because she wanted to keep it on to go in the bath. And then she cried because she could not keep the wet coat on when she got out. Very cute and funny but .... I think I am getting old and cranky and set in my ways for it seems to me that our daughter’s giving in to wearing a coat in the bath is creating a rod for her own back.
Of course, it’s very hard being the mother of a young child. Probably even harder nowadays in the age of social media. Everything you do is in the public eye and is liable to be criticised, whatever you do. Take Kate Middleton - oops, i mean the Duchess of Cambridge. She went along to watch hubby playing polo. As you do! The children played happily but unfortunately little George had a toy gun. Photos were taken. And displayed. This sparked a whole lot of comment, of course.
I remember being very determined that our children were not having toy guns. So they made them out of stickle bricks. How did they even know about guns? We didn’t have television and didn’t read stories involving guns? How much harder nowadays when screens and adverts and you-tube are all around us.
Then there’s the alcohol business. I read an article the other day in which the young mum writing declared that she was going alcohol-free. So many of her friends, she said, seemed to need alcohol as a reprieve from childcare. Drinking was a way of demonstrating that they were still the fun-loving, independent young women they were before children came along. This again strikes me as an odd attitude. I never felt the need to escape from my children. As a matter of fact, I don’t think our daughter feels the need to escape from hers. But I hear quite a lot about young mothers who feel just that. Maybe they became mothers because it was the next thing their life plan said they should do. And then it proved harder than expected!
One unexpected consequence of Brext, apparently, is that fewer young Europeans are applying to be "au pairs" in the UK. That's onereasonably-priced nanny service becoming unavailable to stressed mummies then. Pehaps more wine will be needed.
Mind you, the whole alcohol thing is interesting. When we began working as teachers, more years ago than I care to admit to, it was not the usual thing to go home and open a bottle of wine at the end of a hard day at the chalkface. At the end of every day! Okay, good wine was harder to find at a reasonable price but even so, neither did most of us rush to the pub to drown our sorrows every evening.
Suddenly, maybe about twenty five years ago or so, I started to hear people talk about it being “wine o’ clock”, at the end of a working day. And I don’t just mean teachers. It’s not the same problem as binge drinking but it’s related.
The world has become a strange place.
And I seem to have became a grumpy old thing!
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