December 9th - Thermals and fish and chips

Dear Nigel,

The first snows of winter have come and the temperature has plummeted. My mum arrives from a much milder Northumberland and i put the heating on in her honour. I bundle her out of the railway station and into the Landrover and skate down the road trying to avoid the stationary cars. The other cars see us coming and reverse in unison - i thought this short cut was such a good idea. It's times like these i think of winter tyres and snow chains as an answer to my prayer. This year the council have sent their leaflet out early saying what they are doing, and narrowly avoiding to mention what they are not doing - like wasting our money on salt to grit the roads apparently.

So we get home and i remember that we ate the Carribean stew i thought we'd have, yesterday, and now, as they say 'the cupboard was bare.' I have a cold and i don't feel particularly hospitable so i suggest we have fish and chips because it feels just right in this bitter weather: inside thermals to add to the outside thermals which have been dug out from their summer hiding place. Sexy they are not, but who cares from under this parcel of at least four wool layers.

 Your answer is to cook a curry to 'bring us out in a sweat'. There is something totally defeating to the British idea of dieting about this kind of weather. Your body just craves and craves CARBOHYDRATES in any shape or form, whether bread, followed by toasted muffins, Barmbrack, chocolate, chips - who invented this ridiculous diet? Who sits in your head declaring that this is what you really want to eat, and now? If there is something inside us that instinctively knows, for instance, that there is something in a piece of coal which makes us compelled to lick it when pregnant, then surely there must be good nutritional reason why only chips and chocolate will do.Your curry sounds nice, with fennel and cream - such a lovely vegetable fennel and so under-used.

Tomorrow, snow permitting,we will go and hunt out a Turkey and bring it home and freeze it. I don't want the last minute panic of last year - will the Turkey make it through?or what will we eat on Christmas Day - tinned Ham? I am not aware that a fresh Turkey is any more superior to a frozen one, particularly if you have done the freezing yourself. Are you?

Yours from somewhere no less warmer than the arctic circle,

Martha