Outdoor Eating

This week I saw a funny old photo on Facie. It wasn't pretty or notably composed or emotively lit. Nope it was just a picture of a turd on a very ordinary looking plate with some sugar sprinkled atop just for contrast, and when I saw it I had a lovely little giggle as I recalled that wonderful expression, 'so hungry, I'd eat shit with sugar on it', and I think it might have been a common mothers' response to the eternal, What's for dinner?'

It did make me laugh!

And then friends popped up piccie of the stunning view from their lunch spot and I was able to use that little expression as a silly description.

Yesterday the kids and I grabbed a few sausages and a dod of bread and we sat in the glorious sunny afternoon in the local park and BBQed the snags and chewed up a very tasty meal, as we talked and giggled and entertained ourselves.

And I just wonder why it is that food always tastes so much better out in the yard?

I am pretty sure I have mentioned before that when my girl was a wee one and we didn't have 2 pennies to rub together, which was nearly all the time, we would often just shove whatever leftover stuff there was in the fridge and we'd head off to Southbank in Brisvegas. Yeh back in the day, there was not much there after EXPO 88 so parking was a skate and free to boot. We'd park up and leg it quickly to the water.

More often than not there'd be a car full of kids and I imagine that some of them must have spent a minute or 2 wondering about the strangeness of the dinner fare, but chow down they did and they filled bottles from the bubblers and they swam in the beach / pool and I sat on the grass in the breeze and alternately enjoyed the trill of the kids and zoned out altogether to recharge after all those hours with the rowdy lot at work.

So why does food taste so different when you eat it outdoors?

Buggered if I know. You didn't really think I was gonna give you some sage answer did you? Nope I have no fucking idea.

I reckon perhaps the open space just sucks any stress and tension away and that just leaves the laughter.

And I reckon we must be good for the souls of other folk too as we throw caution to the wind and try to manage to get my old body into places it truly just doesn't belong, not to mention the Marilyn Monroe moment when my Girl's dress flew completely up over her head and she flashed her knicky noos for a peak hour little look see.

The local park is very well appointed with 2 electric BBQs built into large benches. And we figured that in a bid to make sure that people don't move into the rotunda and stay for weeks at a time, there are no seats, plenty of standing room, but no seats. So yesterday we arrived with the food and Zig bolted to the swings and we cleaned the BBQ to within an inch of its life cos that's how we like it. Did you know that a screwed up Twistie packet and a pair of tongs makes for a good rough scraper of a dirty BBQ?  Tip of the day! You're welcome.

But it was a 'belly is feeling very off' day, I fancied a bit of a sit down.

I looked at the concrete but it was pretty grubby and the grass looked OK but ant bites and my inability to haul myself up again put paid to that.

The benches are too high for us short arses to pop onto easily and so we tried to lever our way up with spastic half bent knees, and we tried to clamber up the BBQ part on the other side and then my girl knelt on the ground and suggested that I use her as a ladder. People beeped as they drove by. It could have been because there were 3 lanes of peak hour traffic merging into 2 lanes, just a hair's breath before a bus stop, and so there is always a bit of crossness, but we rather hoped that this farce of old woman arsing up onto a high bench might have helped ease their tension. Sadly I have to admit my failure to bum plant on the bench, but there was some joy for all in the trying.

I really hope that these summer afternoons of fun and food at the park fall into the lovely part of Zig's memory, just like those afternoons at Southbank have been stored away for my girl, oh and for me too.