Old age isn't just creaking bones

Youth is too valuable to be wasted on the young. Marriage too.

Newly married I told VR the best pudding was Crundle Pudding. She didn't know this delicacy. I urged her to consult my mother. She didn't. Years slipped by. My mother died.

In a Kitzbuhel hotel, elder daughter Professional Bleeder, fiddling with free internet access, found a Crundle Pudding recipe. It's pretty simple and I copied it. Told VR I had it. She nodded. Nothing happened.

The slip of paper remained in my wallet for years. Three months ago, terrified I'd lose it, I converted the recipe into a Word file, printed it out and attached it to the cork board. One month ago VR made me Crundle Pudding.

This post isn't about puddings. Rather about breaking away from one influence and accepting another. As a young man I resented VR's resistance, more recently I understood it completely. I had, you might say, grown up.

THE RECIPE. 60 gm butter/marge, 75 gm plain flour, 60 gm castor sugar, 450 ml milk, beaten egg. Rub butter/marg into flour, stir in sugar. Heat milk gently until warm, add beaten egg, stir well into dry ingredients. Bake in preheated oven at 180 C for 45 min.
 
WIP Second Hand (37,696 words)

(Moses said, "My father) urged me to back my instincts with other painters but I disappointed him there; this was the only painting I wanted.”

Francine looked again at the canvas: saw it as a white circle slashed by a thin brown blade. “It’s abstract and yet it’s not.  Something’s about to emerge and I get the feeling there are options. I’m left on the verge. I was surprised an abstract could grip me so. But then why not? Even a realistic painting is still a painting, an impression not reality.”