Pea Soup

In the words of one of my lovely Irish friends here, it was a poxy weekend.  Even worse, it was a long poxy weekend, the length extended by 50% fairly suddenly two weeks ago with the announcement of a general election.  (Yes, two weeks; in your face America, with your drawn-out democratic process...) The poxiness was two-fold: the arrival in our house of Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease, and the arrival, in our jurisdiction, of The Haze.

The Haze is a nice phrase used here to describe a thick blanket – more of a shroud, actually - of pollution which envelopes the island for days on end every couple of years.  It’s basically caused by Doritos*, so please stop buying them, because my eyes hurt and I am about to murder my house-bound children.  (*It’s caused by forest burning in Indonesia, usually started to clear vast areas for palm production.  Thus, Doritos.  Have some carrot sticks instead? YUM.)  So once it starts looking like The End of Civilisation outside (it does, truly – here, take a look:

It just looks like fog, doesn’t it?  Fog which is making the view a wee bit blurry in the distance?  IT’S NOT FOG, and in the (near) distance are – should be – large buildings and tower blocks. (Actually, I quite like that I can’t see them, but I wish it was because they weren’t there. Not because a great big bloody bonfire was blowing its toxic fumes all over us.))

...once it starts looking like The End of Civilisation, people – ex-pats – start going slightly crazy and taping up their doors and windows, and gluing their children to the sofa, and wearing these:

Ha!  I’ve always wanted to be a London bicycle courier.  Don’t worry, I haven’t actually ventured outside in this – YET.  But I will have to if we run out of triangular cheesy corn snacks.   (Also, eye-drops might be a good idea for the shopping list, no?)

While I think of it, there are many benefits to wearing these masks – not least because it will prevent a coroner from concluding in years to come that I smoked 80 fags a day:

I can yell and shriek at my similarly be-masked children all I want, because (a) no one will recognise me, and (b) no one – including my children – can hear me.

No lipstick needed.

Chin-sag hidden.

Ditto wonky teeth (although braces have been ordered! Part of me is hoping we get 12 months smog once they’re in place).

The children are delighted to wear them, and actually obey me when I order them on (they did initially query why they had to wear them in the car and indoors, but deferred to me once I hissed Beijing at them) and behind them their usual squabbles and complaints are delightful smothered muffles.  AND if they wear them long enough they eventually stop talking / moving altogether, which long-term isn’t so good, but as a short-term solution to parenthood is excellent.

Part II of Poxy Weekend was a variation on the usual Sick Child event; a cranky, sad, runny-nosed Baby, who became cranky and fevered, and then cranky and fevered and spotty of hand and foot. And kept complaining that her mouth was sore, and would only eat ice-cream.  And despite all this, it took until Sunday morning – almost a week after the initial onset of crankiness and its cohorts- for the parenting penny to drop. 

Did you know that if you have HF&M in Singapore that you have to report it to the Government AND quarantine the child for TEN DAYS?   Not that we’re going anywhere in that pea-soup, but it’s making a miserable situation even more so.

Speaking of which, I have just had the most delicious pea-soup – the irony and appropriateness of which has only just dawned on me – for dinner.  The Man is away, a situation I usually celebrate by having soup for dinner.  (I am banned from doing so in his presence; apparently soup is “not dinner”.) (I also generally have one of his bottles of wine.  That’ll show him.)  I think I’ve given this recipe before, but you just add a bag of frozen peas to some softened onions and potatoes, throw in a handful of mint (if you have it), cover with stock, bring to the boil, then simmer for a few minutes before blending.  Lots of olive oil and salt.   No photo, because I didn’t think of it (and was too busy gobbling and drinking).  Here’s one instead of the Baby, skipping out to play hide-and-go-seek in the smog.  (It keeps them occupied for hours.)