Beans on toast.

Every Tuesday Mrs Netall and I venture into town to do a bit of shopping and pay our regular visit to the library. Not that I’m a big reader, its just that the diuretic tablets I have to take every morning start to kick in by the time we are passing the place, and there’s a toilet in there.

I’m not a big lover of shopping either, and usually end up forlornly waiting outside with tied up dogs, while she’s inside buying mysterious things. But if I’m patient and behave myself, she rewards me with a late breakfast of beans on toast and a mug of coffee at our favourite café on route.

Of course I could have beans on toast anytime at home, made with the freshest of home baked bread, real butter and only the best beans money can buy. But there’s something about our little treat that defies all culinary logic, because it shouldn’t but it does, taste delicious.

Is it the thin sliced white bread I ask myself, toasted by the plumber with his blow torch, who’s in the back fixing the sink. The quality varies, but sometimes it can be a work of art with a patch of white that radiates out through all shades of brown to a blackened perimeter. I once had a piece with the face of Christ clearly visible on it, could it have been that the Holy Toast was among us that day!

Or is it the beans ? Kept warm for at least 4 hours in a container on the hot plate, until they can only be served up with a cake slice. Sometimes they have peas on the menu, in a container next to the beans, and if you’re lucky you get some of those as well. It all adds colour to the appearance you see, and I’d give the counter staff 5.9 for artistic merit if it was a competition.

Then there’s the butter to consider, or whatever it is they put on the toast, its yellow anyway. Applied so thick I’m sure they’re doing a deal with the local heart surgeon, who’s trying to meet his government targets.

Obviously there’s a bricklayer working in the back with the plumber, who lends them a trowel to spread it on with, and I have been known to scrape off the un-melted excess and take it home in a serviette to grease the chain on my bike.

It’s not cheap mind, and they’ve just put the prices up! In fact the last time we were in I overheard an old lady saying to her friend, that if her mother were still alive today, she’d die if she saw those prices.

What the hell has all this got to do with allotments, I hear you ask.

Sod all really, so here are some gratuitous photographs of strawberries I picked today to compensate.


This bonzer weighed in at a full 2 ounces!