Little victories

 In these pared down times it can be hard to find the joy. As I pound the streets I hear people talking.

“There’s just nothing to look forward to. I just don’t want to hope too much.”

“When the pubs open...watch out world.......If the pubs open.”

“I had to cancel three holidays last year.”

It can feel as though life is one long trudge towards nothingness. It can feel particularly difficult at the moment, with the possible end in sight. It’s that moment when the prisoner is waiting to hear from the parole board. The door is open, the sun is shining,  Spring is in the air but that pesky board could still come up with a valid reason to keep you locked up. 

The prison metaphor and my knowledge of it from sitcoms has been very useful for me. When Clement and Le Frenais were writing Porridge they spoke to an ex-prisoner called Jonathan Marshall about his book, “How to survive in the nick,” and based the whole show around one phrase he used. Little victories. Ronnie Barker then delivered a wonderful performance that, if we were watching carefully, should have given us all the tools required to survive being locked up, or even locked down. 

It has been about taking delight in small things. Being pleased when you have finally sorted your screws into properly labelled jars, or alphabetised the books on your shelf are nice things but there is nothing more pleasing than when the victory is over another person. You can’t gloat at your books or screws. You might have won the victory over their desire for chaos but they don’t care. 

Yesterday, I had a small victory over the Long Suffering Husband. He took a break from sorting his screws and we watched Saturday Morning Kitchen together. He decided that Nadia’s cheese and ham crown looked nice (I think it was the ketchup in it) and suggested we have that instead of our planned takeaway. 

“What could we have with it though?” he asked, genuinely stumped. 

Nadia had made it for breakfast, so needed nothing else.

I told him that it would be nice with salad, which he agreed to in preference to vegetables. A couple of wilted leaves on the side of the plate that he could push around for a bit before leaving is his idea of a perfect vegetable. When we first met he didn’t eat a single vegetable and was particularly against tomatoes. I found this odd, as all of his food was flavoured with copious amounts of brown sauce or tomato ketchup. When one of my friends, who was vegetarian suggested that he was peculiar for not liking vegetables he took a tomato and did some, “Help! I’m being murdered!” voices as he cut it. She never challenged him again and I’m not sure if she ever ate another tomato.

The salad I planned was a selection of Ottolenhgi’s. I made a potato salad, bean lemon and hazel nut and a tomato and pomegranate salad. I wasn’t expecting him to even try them.

He looked at the table and decided it looked nice. He took a picture for the family WhatsApp.

“This isn’t what I was expecting when you said salad,” he said, warily.

I said nothing and piled food onto my plate. He did the same.

“Oh, that’s disappointing,” he said, “but that’s really tasty.”

He was talking about the tomato dish being tasty. The ham and cheese crown was boring but the Ottolenghi salads were a winner.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how good that felt. He ate tomatoes and liked them. A thirty year battle, won!

Thank you lockdown 3.