Saturday 31 October 2009

Birthday Eve

My family arrived today bearing gifts and, more importantly, food. Despite it being out of visiting hours we managed to get special dispensation to hold a little lunch party. However, before I tucked into the decent stuff I had to contend with the hospital lunch.


Hungarian Goulash (someone's definitely giving me more meat than the other inmates)


Tastes like scourer with Cif Lemon Cream (the menu said it was lemon sponge)


Pink Champagne... a good starter


Mrs TM prepares thn lunch


Bagel and smoked salmon. Yummy birthday fayre!

19 comments:

  1. Mrs TM's lunch looks delicious, cheers TM, hope you all enjoyed.

    I should imagine that having a day like today, family, good food, love, makes the world a much better place for you TM, and that makes me happy for you.

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  2. Happy Birthday, I did not realise, all the very best to you.

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  3. Three cheers (once again) for Mrs TM. Pink Champers, eh! Bet that was better than Sister Morphine. Best wishes for tomorrow.

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  4. Very best wishes for tomorrow. It'll be a memorable birthday.
    I am so glad you have not lost your sense of humour despite everything you have gone through. Your lemon scourer with Cif was spot-on and made me laugh out loud. Andis goulash not supposed to be red due to the peppers and paprika powder, finished off with a swirl of sour cream?

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  5. Food should be a positive and sensual experience. Eating food that somebody else has prepared for you should be pleasurable. This is probably not something we consider on a conscious level very often, partly because we don’t want a sensual connection to the pimpled troll shoving our burger across the counter at us, and partly because for some people a stranger putting something in their mouth once led to them having to leave scout camp early.

    Advertisers however are acutely aware that over the last few years, ‘food porn’ (that is, making food sexy for an advert, rather than doing something vile with a cucumber) has come more and more into the mainstream, the most perfect example being those M&S food ads where a woman’s voice purrs about cake while said cake is drenched in cream.

    Those M&S ads were the equivalent of one of those high-budget dirty movies where the ‘actors’ are buff, well lit and all their tattoos are spelled right – classy!

    Traction man – your food photographs show something that is the equivalent of armature porn filmed in a Croydon bus shelter on a mobile camera, while a pensioner sits on adjacent seat and pretends not to notice anything; in short, horrific, disturbing and after seeing it you wonder if you can get some sort of therapy or drug that will remove the memory. Failing that, there’s always booze.

    You have my sympathy and my admiration. Stuck in a room with an unchanging regime and an unchanging view, you must look for stimulation wherever you can find it and you would think that an institution like the NHS would recognise that food is an important part of this. In terms of colour alone there are many interesting things you can do with custard – and that’s before you start pouring it onto stuff.

    Frankly I’m amazed at your resilience – I would have imagined that by this point, your blog would be about the creature you are convinced is hiding in the pot plant in your room – this is especially worrying as you would have been hallucinating the pot plant, never mind the creature.

    It seems so obvious, deprived of the stimulation that many of us consider so normal we don’t even notice it (the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune that make up our daily lives, like the train being late, marketing cold calls, anything and everything on ‘Question Time’, basically anything that gets the heart rate up) you’d think that somebody would realise that patients might like to put something a little more interesting than a thermometer in their mouths and not be confronted day after day with the sort of menu that makes the bloke in the next bed who is banned from having solids the envy of everyone, especially as some kind visitor swapped his glucose drip for a bottle of Gordons.

    A couple of years ago I was oop north and happened to stop at a KFC for a coffee. This KFC was just outside the grounds of a hospital and I was amazed to see somebody in what looked like a hospital gown trundle in there on one of those mobility chariot things. At the time I put it down to some sort of Northern thing where the bloke pitched a fit if he didn’t get a fist full of junk food every few days and I watched with unmasked distress as a frail old chap effectively demolished a family bucket of mechanically recovered chicken.

    Now I realise why. Bustin’ out of the hospital in that mobility chariot to get those bits o’ fowl must have made him feel like Steve McQueen jumping the wire in The Great Escape and actually making it to Swizerland.

    Really enjoy your blog, sad to say that when the food gets back to ‘normal’, that is, awful, it’s perversely more entertaining than when its good – I liked the photograph of the breaded fish and chips and thought ‘hey, not bad’ until I realised how small the portion was! What sort of ‘fish’ was that? Minnow?

    Chin (and leg!) up, get well soon, keep blogging and hope you have a happy birthday tomorrow.

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  6. Happy birthday. But what on earth is that next to the goulash? It looks like one of those bubbles of dogfish eggs you get washed up in tidelines.

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  7. what ? no birthday cake ??!!! oh well . lets see if the hospital gives you an extra special dessert tomarrow ! maybe if your lucky , they will oput on some of that custard you enjoy so much . yummers.

    happy birthday is advance and try not to get into trouble .


    rhonda,usa

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  8. 'scuse me TM - regarding your pudding. How do you know what a scourer and Cif lemon cream taste like?

    If the smoked salmon bagels are anything to go by I bet it's not something that Mrs TM has ever produced.

    Susan

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  9. Happy birthday for tomorrow TM (in case I don't visit your blog tomorrow).

    I do hope you get some decent food tomorrow. It's bad enough being in hospital on your birthday I should imagine, without being expected to eat gloop and slop.

    Gill x

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  10. I can't say what that "goulash" looks like. The bagels look good though.

    Happy birthday when it comes. I may not get a chance to look in on the day as I'll be off on my hols but I hope you get some decent nosh and fun pressies. Hope you get out soon.

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  11. Happy Birthday from across the pond.
    Mrs. TM is a life saver once again. That slop the you were given for lunch wouldn't even flush down to loo.
    Hope you have a better week this week. Pain can be so wearing.
    Betty
    Canada

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  12. Sarah Irving said...
    Happy birthday. But what on earth is that next to the goulash? It looks like one of those bubbles of dogfish eggs you get washed up in tidelines.

    That 'thing' id s dumpling. I'm not sure of its purpose but it could be some kind i of weapon..

    Best regards

    TM

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  13. Happy Birthday for tomorrow.

    Those poor hungarians - no wonder they revolted.

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  14. hungarian goolash looks as though it si mouldy - or is that the lighting - i wouldn't touch it with a bargepole - how come you had great food last week and now it is back to normal? Have a very happy birthday - 21 again??

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  15. Happy birthday tomorrow!

    binlid

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  16. What can I possibly say
    apart from hoping your
    next birthday, ( and this one )
    keeps you out of your discomfort and
    excruciating pain. Can you not actually
    refuse NHS treatment and go private ??

    Tony, Hants.

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  17. My medical treatment has been excellent. The doctors are some of the best in their field. The nurses are superb. Even if I wanted to go private i couldn't afford it. My only criticism is of the food!

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  18. TM, hello from Tony.
    What keeps you up at this unearthly hour ?
    Absolutely agree with your comments.
    The staff excellent,how do we improve the food ?

    Tony, Hants.

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