Hello, people of the world!  

I’m back from my travels through England, France, and Russia…actually I’ve been back nearly four weeks now but things being…well things…have not had the time to put virtual pen to paper to blog.  Until now.  

Why? Well, first up there was a double whammy of jetlag (landing late on Friday night) and starting a new job (Monday morning).  One of those things is exhausting.  Both in four days is utterly overwhelming.  I spent at least the first ten days in a head-spinning daze and utter exhaustion

Then the last two weeks I have been hitting the gym pretty hard.  You know what Charles De Gaulle said about France being a nation of 246 kinds of cheese?  Well, I think I tasted every single one of them.  With wine to match…and, as a result, I came home a  little….ummm….shall we say rounder than when I left? So more exhaustion but of the physical, not the mental kind this time. So, it has felt that there was just no time to write. 

But then today I had a revelation ….I could write at lunchtime!  So I packed my notebook in my bag and walked down to the riverside to write.  I decided the river was the best place because where I work now is kind of a tourist area and you can never find a place to sit in the food court.  And I to am too stingy to buy my lunch every day and hence be able to sit in a café to write. So down to the river it was! 

We’ll come back to that but whilst we’re talking about being time poor, I thought  I would share one of my favourite meals that takes less than ten minutes to prepare.  In summer, I eat this, or a version of it at least once a week after the gym.  

The ingredients are inspired by a very cute appetizer I read about in a magazine where you wrap slices of plum and slivers of blue cheese in strips of prosciutto.  But when we need a meal on the table in under ten, there’s no time for the niceties of wrapping.  We’re going to dump some lettuce on a plate (I used rocket, or arugula to my American friends) then add some slices of prosciutto, some slices of plum, some chunks of blue cheese and some pistachios.  Dress with a drizzle of oil and balsamic vinegar.  

So, my dance class runs from 8 pm to 9 pm, by the time I get home and into the kitchen it’s usually about ten past nine….and voila…here is a salad made and ready to eat by around 18 minutes past.  It’s fast, it’s pretty to look and healthy to eat…well-ish.

There’s no real recipe – use whatever greens and cold meat you have.  You can sub in peaches or apricots for the plums, goat’s cheese or any other soft cheese for the gorgonzola, and your favourite nuts for the pistachios. 

So, let’s head back down to the river to see how the al fresco writing went.  It must have been a success because you’re reading this now right?

Well…it was a gorgeous day and so pretty down there.  It was exciting. I could be like the impressionist painters who sought inspiration “en plein air”.  And I finally I could get some words out.  So I wrote a bit.  Ate my lunch.  Then I got a bit distracted by all the people jogging or running along the path and wondered if maybe that’s what I should be doing.  The short answer to that is no.  Because not only do I sweat like a maniac when I run but my face goes bright red for about two hours after.  I could shower to get rid of the one but there is no getting over that red face.  And it’s a new job.  I don’t want to be known as the tomato face girl.  Then I realised I was there to write, not to get distracted by people going by.

But first,  I had to move because I was being attacked by ants.  

So I moved.  Wrote a bit more.  Ate a bit more.  Thought about how coincidental it was that I was writing about a salad I make when I am time poor at a  time when I was time poor and had to sit by the river to write at lunchtime.

Then I had to move again because a very aggressive seagull kept trying to steal my lunch.  It was some leftover turkey meatballs and salad.  I don’t think seagulls should be so keen to eat turkey.  It’s kind of cannibalism.  If I didn’t already hate them, that would have turned me against them.  Plus I once saw them trying to attack ducklings at the lake near my house.  They are the worst.

So.  Third location lucky right?  Wrong. I had barely sat down when I put my hand in something that…I really want to say it was a piece of rotten fruit.  And you know it’s bad when that’s the best case scenario.  I think it was far more likely to be something that a seagull or duck had left behind.  Thank goodness I never go anywhere without a handy supply of anti-bac and tissues…

And there ended the great “Let’s see if we can write outdoors” experiment of 2018.  Epic fail. 

On the upside,  on the way back from the river I spotted a far-flung corner of the food court that looked relatively empty.  ‘Til next week. 

Enjoy the salad!