Sunday solitude

/ Su Leslie
Sunday breakfast. Close-up shot of fruit salad (plum, blueberries and pomegranate) with croissant. Image: Su Leslie, 2017

Sunday breakfast; croissant and fruit. Image: Su Leslie, 2017

With all that’s happening in the world, and in my own life, it was nice to take a little time this morning to think, write, watch the wind blow debris all over the lawn — and enjoy breakfast.

Sunday morning breakfast. Plate of fruit and croissant, latte in a glass. Image: Su Leslie, 2017

Sunday morning breakfast. Image: Su Leslie, 2017

Sunday morning breakfast. Plate of fruit and croissant, latte in a glass. Garden in background. Image: Su Leslie, 2017

Sunday morning breakfast. Image: Su Leslie, 2017

 

57 thoughts on “Sunday solitude”

      • Oh, là là! 😉 When it comes to breakfast, I´m also French, at midday I´m Italian, and in the evening so many other things 😀
        I´m actually in the process of learning French (since over a year, and I fear getting older doesn’t help learning a new language with the same panache and style I used to 😉 ). So I have to do it the stubborn way and eat as many croissants as possible in the hope that it will help making me fluent someday 😉 xxx

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        • I love it! Croissants as a kind of language conduit. I should definitely try that — especially as it’s Saturday and that’s my traditional decadent breakfast day.
          On the other hand: not being negative, but I suspect if eating a nation’s food really could confer language proficiency, I would be fluent in Thai by now.
          🙂 xxxx

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          • Mmh, a traditional decadent breakfast day sounds marvelous! But I won´t complain since I´m planning on making scones for cream tea today!!! The only things I´m lacking, and it makes my heart weep in despair, is clotted creme which is really too expensive around here (7 euros!) and which I grudgingly replace with crème double. Also my homemade strawberry marmalade is out… Ah, well, I´m sure it will be fine anyway 🙂
            Have a beautiful weekend! xxxxxxxx 🙂

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          • 🙂 I recently started using full-fat milk in my coffee and I do fear this may be the beginning of a slippery slope. I’ve found a brand of organic milk that isn’t homogenised so there is a layer of cream on top. I suprised myself by actually quite liking the taste of that. Thankfully there is only a very small amount and most of it can be shaken into the milk — otherwise I would start to look like Jabba the Hutt.

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          • Hahaha! Oh, my! Jabba the Hutt! 🙂 You really made me laugh with that one! 😀 But don´t fear: I use full-fat milk all my life (and I need at least half a liter a day) and so far it didn’t show. 😉 And if you really want to be French, you need to enjoy as much fat, sugars and carbohydrates as you can get – and stay slim! In Italy that´s also common knowledge: what you like and tastes good, is light, and what you don´t like is heavy and makes you fat 😉 I think it´s important to have a well balanced diet, and that includes regular sins like croissants 😉 And it would take a lot of those to look like Jabba 😉

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          • I really think that it is the way British/American/Commonwealth people eat that is the problem. (In general) we have become so divorced from real food and meals as a joyous occasion. My son used to complain that we made him eat with us at the table when all his friends had TV meals. Now he comes home for “family dinner” and wants to eat at the table. Oh dear, I feel a rant coming on. Must be time for coffee. Hope your week is going well xxx

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          • Yes, I know what you mean. When I first visited England I was astonished to find a little TV just in every room. I was especially taken aback by the TV in front of the dinner table and even more after discovering that it seemed to be that way in every single house I visited! Sure, as a kid I thought on one hand that this was cool, but actually I found it rather disturbing that no one really seemed to pay attention to the other. Somehow eating didn’t make much fun that way, it was just something you did at the side.
            It´s wonderful that your son has now come around and insists on upholding that tradition! 🙂 xxxxxxx

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          • I’m glad it’s not just me who objects to TV everywhere. For a long time we had one TV set — in the living room. When to boy-child got older we bought another so he and his friends could play Playstation in another room (behind a closed door so the noise didn’t drive me crazy). Now we have one set again. I remember a kid coming to play with my son once, walking round our house for a few minutes and then asking in the most plaintive tone, “where are all the TVs”. This kid had no idea how to play at anything. He wasn’t interested in going outside, playing with Lego, doing art, nothing. He wanted to sit in front of the TV on a sunny afternoon. Strangely enough, he never came back to our house.

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          • Oh, my! That poor child! Didn’t´t know what else to do with himself, that must have been horrible! I rather liked having only one TV set, even as a kid, that way we as a family were forced to sit together in front of it, instead of separated. Of course, there were lively debates about what exactly we would watch, but making compromises was a good part of that process. And I´d laughed my head off when my mom shuddered at having to watch all 3 Star Wars films with me at my birthday! (She had her revenge forcing me to watch a horrible weekly German drama series every Sunday;) ). Nowadays I don´t even have a TV anymore as I prefer watching films and series without adverts, so I use my laptop for it 😉

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          • Hehe I remember the family compromises! I guess the big t and I still do that a bit. He loves house design shows and I have a soft spot for cheesy American crime dramas. We still tend to play online stuff through our to cos the screen is bigger, so even then we make compromises. I feel a bit sad for kids growing up not learning those skills. That’s the stuff families do so well, and if children aren’t learning there, what sort of adults will they be. Scary thought. 🤔

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          • Yeah, a very scary thought indeed! Though I think they wouldn’t even notice what ability they are missing since everyone is able to watch whatever they like on their mobile/ipad/laptop… Gone are the days where teenies met to watch Buffy or Beverly Hills 90210… 😉

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          • True; it’s compromise on other things that I’m worried about. I’ve seen my son and his friends walk away from a chance to spend time together because they all wanted slightly different things, and didn’t know how to figure out how to create a compromise that would give them all some enjoyment. Or maybe it’s just an age thing and I’m being too pessimistic. 🙂

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          • Oh! But of course! How could I forget!! (clutching my hand at my forehead 😉 ) Well, but you would have to be careful if you´ve travelled through England anyway 😉 The English surely didn’t liked to be reminded of it 😉

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          • I totally agree. I’m really fearful for my friends and family in the UK and Europe, although the ripples will spread far beyond there. It has split my family, with my brothers (who both live in England) on opposite sides of the referendum. And it has really energised my Scottish Nationalist cousins too. Troubled times!

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          • My aunt voted also for it (but she apologized to me when we spoke on the phone ;)) She tried to make me see her reasoning and although I do get her points, I , like my cousins, her sons, don´t share it. It´s a generation thing I think, many of the older generation think it had been better before the EU and want to have those times back. But I can´t help thinking that like with everything else, memory doesn’t always serves right, that we glorify things that weren’t really that good after all. It´s what many people do who lived in East Germany. We can never go back in time, and it will be a mistake to try. What makes me even more sad is, that they (the politicians in Brussels) want to make sure that this act will never be reversible – that can´t be right, can it? Troubled times indeed…

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          • I think you are absolutely right. My mother is the same; she is imagining a time that is long gone and has been worn smooth in her memory by other events. Her real fear is immigrants; which makes me so angry since my parents emigrated to New Zealand, and my mother has family members all over the world who are immigrants. She just can’t connect her behaviour in moving to NZ with modern-day migrants going to the UK. You are right … troubled times.

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          • That must be tough to argue with her about it… My aunt also mostly fears the immigrants while at the same time used to work in Spain and in Egypt in the 70s and 80s as an English teacher. It´s strange how it is ok to do that themselves but not for others… My aunt even complained to me once while we were having a walk, that the immigrants were eating the swans and ducks that live on the Themse! You can imagine my incredulous look, I´m sure! Ah, well, there´s nothing we can do, I suspect, except for hope for the best, and fear for the worst…

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          • Yes, it is sad, but I think we need to be able to laugh about them, otherwise we would despair and that wouldn’t help anyone, right? That´s why I adore comedians, they always make light of serious stuff in order to take its horror away, at least for a couple of minutes and after a good laugh, one feels a bit better, even if the situation in general hasn’t changed.

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          • I’ve seen some quite funny stuff on YouTube from other European countries; I’ll look for some German satire. Apparently our Prime Minister is to get his first phone call from the White House today, so I guess that will dominate the news tonight.

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          • Wow! I don’t even talk to my mother for that long. Our PM’s call was the first item on the news (on our national day; one marked by protest and questions about race relations). Apparently it lasted about 15 minutes.

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          • 😦 I was imagining one-handed phone holding while they made cups of tea, and strange echoes on the line while they had toilet breaks. Or perhaps just putting the phone down somewhere while they dashed off to make a sandwich or have a lie-down. That’s how I get through epic phone calls.

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  8. I don’t know which I envy more right now–that breakfast or the green season you are enjoying. February is starting out bitterly cold where I live! Though I here it may go above freezing this week.

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