I am probably the most frugal Christmas shopper because I truly hate the way that bins get filled with good food that’s just gone bad because it’s been bought ‘with eyes bigger than tummies’ as my Mum would say. We always had instilled in us ‘waste not, want not’ as kids and to this day I really do try to live by that maxim.

So, our entire Christmas ‘haul’ was five oranges, a packet of pistachios, two small packs of mince pies, two comice pears and a few walnuts that were not even bought for Christmas, but for a calendar shot a few weeks earlier.

DM was looking to satisfy a sugar craving when we got in today (yes, we have been OUT, more on that in a mo) and asked if there were any mince pies left. I said no and pointed him in the direction of the fruit bowl. His response? He said ‘oh, there’s a mouldy one in there’ (without even looking). I must admit to getting a bit tetchy about him knowing there is a mouldy orange and just leaving it to stew in its own juices. If you see what I mean. Sometimes I wonder what his last slave died of…..

Anyway, the top and bottom of it was there was indeed a mouldy orange so it has gone in the compost bin. However, in our defence, it’s the only bit of food waste we’ve had this Christmas. What fascinated me when I looked at it was that it’s actually got the nuts stuck to it. Of course they weren’t stuck there by me and so, in a spirit of adventure that shocked and thrilled me all at once, I pulled a walnut off. Yep, I did. I decided that I really NEEDED to know why they were stuck. What I discovered was that the mould on the orange has obviously permeated the shells of the nuts because as I pulled, the fruit’s skin gave way, leaving a clump of rotting skin on the surface of the nut. In my rather paltry knowledge of science, I’d say that’s because the surface of the nut has been penetrated and the skin of the fruit is more fragile so gave way first when pulled.

What does this prove? Well, I suppose bugger all actually unless you can see a need to stick nuts to rotting fruit. I am though, more than a bit unhappy at ANYTHING from my kitchen going to waste.

I think the best bit, on reflection is that I could be bothered to question it. Given the last week’s vegetative state, I reckon that’s an improvement. This has been stimulated by an invigorated DM, who came into the kitchen this morning for his breakfast with an electrical charge evident, saying ‘what are we going to do today?’

We discussed that our plan at the start of winter was to explore some of the bits of our adopted home that we’ve not yet seen (we’d made rash statements about the coast path but in the heavy rain and high winds so far this winter, we’ve both rapidly gone off that idea….something to do with the possibility of being blown off a cliff!!!) So, I said, ‘OK – let’s go to a small town that we’ve not been to before and just mooch about’. It was decided that was a good plan so we set off for Truro – not exactly a small town by Cornish standards, indeed it is our county town, but still small compared to towns in the South East – I’d say it is sort of Dorking-ish in size and style. (If that is more meaningful to anyone who doesn’t know Truro.)

It was a success in as much as we saw something new, we pronounced that we’d both probably rather shop there than Plymouth and we learned that the good people of Truro are possibly all foot fetishists…..well, that’s if the number of shoe shops is anything to go by. We saw rather more of them than you’d usually see. Some of them even had ‘English shoes’ – you know beautiful (apart from the colour) tan brogues with hand tooled detailing on the toes and heels. Exquisitely made. We’re noticing this now that we’ve seen the rather delicious ‘Kinky Boots’, which graced our TV screen a couple of days ago.

One of the things they said in that film is that you can tell what sort of person you are by your shoes. I’d say they’d think I was completely schizophrenic looking at my two fave pairs of shoes side by side – my kittens and my Birkenstocks!

Last year, Archie ended my PAD gallery.