Friday, 26 August 2011

Revenge of the Tomato Seedlings

Irene had been doing some gardening.





For several weeks she had been trying to grow some tomato plants from seeds saved from a local tomato. She had even made a ‘gro-bag’ out of one of the old ‘Tile Cement’ bags Malcolm had left from tiling the kitchen, and used an old pottery charcoal stove for a pot. And she had successfully nurtured several seedlings to the point when she was about to plant then out in the garden.


And then the cockerel came.




It wasn’t entirely his fault. He were on the menu for dinner for some visitors to the Diocese from Manchester. He should have been a bit grateful as the meal had been postponed 24 hours and so he had the run of the garden. (Except to restrain him his legs were tied together, in African fashion, with a length of string so that he could walk around but should have been unable to run – a bit like a convicts ‘ball and chain’. This did not prevent him, who we shall call Houdini, as he managed to untie the string and at one point was running down the road with Irene and several others chasing after him. She never had this problem getting hold of chicken in Tescos!!)


Later Houdini, maybe to recover from his exertion, found the tempting gro-bag and decided what would be his last meal. All the seedlings were scoffed. Maybe he thought he needed some seasoning?



But Revenge is best served cold – or, in this case, hot!!



That night we sat down with the visitors and tucked into chicken stew, with rice, potatoes, matoke (cooked green plantain bananas) and cabbage. This had been cooked by Alan over a traditional charcoal stove. Irene in particular relished the meal – though, to be honest, she couldn’t taste the tomato seasoning!!!!


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