"Honey on toast. No jam or marmalade for me please !"
"No, no butter or cheese either !"
I was shifting my abode, this person was supposed to help me shift , and here I was trying to feed him toasts. I could kick myself in the shin . How was I supposed to know where I had placed the bottle of honey ? It could be in the fourth carton of kitchen stuff, or in the first. Or it could be in the spouse's belongings as he was fond of honey and would occasionally keep it on his bedside table . A trail of determined ants would always lead me to the honey bottle , which sat there , its drippings coating the sides and smudging my embroidered tablecloth from Kashmir. In serious breaches , the cap would have rolled down underneath the bed, where it would be fetched from, by wide arcs of reluctant brooms ,smothered unrecognisably , in honey, ants and dust bunnies .
I would retrieve , curse , clean , curse some more , and replace the bottle on the kitchen shelf . Over the years, my unconscious mind and spouse's rising blood sugar, associated honey with too much work and insulin shots. I stopped buying it and the last bottle sat , half slurped on the kitchen shelf for too long . The honey solidified into a golden mass, first , then it started bleaching itself , top downwards . A white ,crinkled ,scummy layer appeared on the surface .
With a sickening certainty , I remembered chucking the honey, bottle and all, into the dustbin , during a recent "purge", that always preceded a move . Others called it "spring cleaning",only , this was no spring . Blistering summer morning , and a shorts clad urchin sat on my balcony, plate of "unhoneyed " toasts on his lap, staring at me expectantly.
"No, no butter or cheese either !"
I was shifting my abode, this person was supposed to help me shift , and here I was trying to feed him toasts. I could kick myself in the shin . How was I supposed to know where I had placed the bottle of honey ? It could be in the fourth carton of kitchen stuff, or in the first. Or it could be in the spouse's belongings as he was fond of honey and would occasionally keep it on his bedside table . A trail of determined ants would always lead me to the honey bottle , which sat there , its drippings coating the sides and smudging my embroidered tablecloth from Kashmir. In serious breaches , the cap would have rolled down underneath the bed, where it would be fetched from, by wide arcs of reluctant brooms ,smothered unrecognisably , in honey, ants and dust bunnies .
I would retrieve , curse , clean , curse some more , and replace the bottle on the kitchen shelf . Over the years, my unconscious mind and spouse's rising blood sugar, associated honey with too much work and insulin shots. I stopped buying it and the last bottle sat , half slurped on the kitchen shelf for too long . The honey solidified into a golden mass, first , then it started bleaching itself , top downwards . A white ,crinkled ,scummy layer appeared on the surface .
With a sickening certainty , I remembered chucking the honey, bottle and all, into the dustbin , during a recent "purge", that always preceded a move . Others called it "spring cleaning",only , this was no spring . Blistering summer morning , and a shorts clad urchin sat on my balcony, plate of "unhoneyed " toasts on his lap, staring at me expectantly.
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