Bernadette Strachan

PIE It was a very good shepherd’s pie that I made last week (top tip: a dollop of tomato chutney in the mincey mix) but I thought it would never end.

Day after day, when Matthew would hopefully ask what was for dinner, I’d say brightly ‘Shepherd’s Pie!’ as if he hadn’t already eaten his own weight in the bloody stuff. ‘Great!’ he’d say, then slink off to keen somewhere. But it’s all gone now. And I won’t be making Shepherd’s Pie again until perms come back in to fashion.
 
SHOES ON THE BED I pride myself on not being superstitious.  My parents were super-superstitious and it infuriated me. My Father would dance a polka of panic if he cracked a mirror, and my Mother happily prophesied an argument if she saw knives crossed on a plate. There’s no place for these doughily peasant fears in our bright shiny modern world. I chase black cats, I laugh in the face of the single magpie, I detour under ladders. Why, then, am I unable – physically unable – to put new shoes on a bed? Accustomed to spinning in her grave at my beliefs or lack of them, my very superstitious Grandmother is presumably having a smug little rest just now.

DOG/EGG CONUNDRUM If you read regularly (and God bless you and keep you if you do) you’ll be aware of Mavis, our dog.

You may also be aware of Eggs Benedict. I’m inordinately fond of both these things, altho’ Mavis is better company. I ordered Eggs Benedict when Matthew and I had a rare Niamh-less night in a hotel to celebrate our wedding anniversary this week, but as I raised the fork to my mouth I stopped. (This is rare – forks do not stop on the way to my mouth, unless there’s a fire alarm or somebody is pointing a gun at me.) ‘Here,’ I said to my husband of exactly eight years. ‘What does that smell remind you of?’ ‘Mavis,’ he replied without hesitation. Put me right off.

And here’s the start of an occasional series! Oh the excitement.

No, I don’t like him Anton du Beke. Can’t like him. (I haven’t tried very hard, but all the same.) He’s so oily, treating the viewing public as if they’re a mass of sex-starved octogenarian ladies all gagging for a glimpse of his bony behind as he drags some poor celebrity around the Strictly Come Dancing set. He seems to be becoming a celebridee in his own right now. He looks at the camera as if there’s a mirror on it, and he’s admiring his own glorious features. I saw him in the street the other day and purposefully didn’t let on I recognised him. Ooh, I’m hard, me. Oh, and his real name is Anthony Beak, for goodness’ sake. I think I’ll write my next book under the name Bernadine du Strack.

Yes, I do like her Claudia Winkelman. Once I’d come to terms with the thinness, the orangeness, and the nature of the eye make up, I realized I love her. She’s funny, and original, and so very small that it puts her on a par with Mavis vis a vis cuteness levels. I like to see witty women doing well. And she’s got lovely hair. I only really like the sort of people you can imagine lunch in a restaurant just going on and on with, and I fondly fantasise that Claudia and I would still be there when dinner started.

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