Wyn Drabble.
I was in reasonably rustic accommodation for one night but, alas, there was no handy urban area full of restaurants to satisfy my dinner needs.
Nor was there a taxi service which I could have used to ferry me back from the nearest eatery after a meal and a drink or two.
So, I drove to the nearest supermarket and bought a few drinks and a simple-to-prepare meal. It's a modus operandi with a huge margin for error but, hey, I had no real choice.
Before I reveal what I bought, let me assure you that I would never normally eat such a meal as the one I prepared. It was chosen for convenience and its ability to be prepared in a microwave and on two gas burners.
I chose - lowers head in embarrassment at this point - a frozen, single-serve cottage pie and some frozen Brussels sprouts for my greens.
The cottage pie seemed appropriate given that my accommodation was a cottage on a vineyard. And there's nothing wrong with cottage pie anyway. Until you bring commercial preparation into the equation, that is.
To be fair, the black tray it was served in I could not fault. It was pleasingly rectangular and was deep enough to hold a satisfying meal. The rest you will think I am exaggerating but I am not.
After piercing the plastic film and heating on high for four minutes as instructed, I was faced with ... well ... a puddle in the aforementioned perfect black tray.
The bottom few millimetres of the puddle were brownish in colour and the top few centimetres a sort of potato colour dotted with a few random outbreaks of cheese. Between the two layers was a beige mingling area.
The cottage pie was watery, it was bland, it was insubstantial. It was cheeky to have put a price tag on it.
Fortunately there was something else provided by the accommodation to even things out a little.
On the central table was what I shall call a breakfast basket. The clues were that it contained little boxes of cereals and diminutive containers of spreads.
There was also a brown paper bag, folded neatly at the top. It reminded me of the way purchases from the grocer used to be bagged when I was a boy.
What could be in it? The fact that there was a George Clooney-style coffee machine on the kitchen bench suggested it might be something decent.
Inside the brown bag were six freshly baked pikelets. Serious ones too, each about five inches in diameter.
After eating the puddle (by spoon), I helped my hunger by eating two of the pikelets with no adornment. The other four I saved for breakfast to have with my George-style coffee.
But, next morning, the coffee didn't go well.
Yes, there were instructions with photographs and I followed them but what happened was that the little canister disappeared inside the machine, there were mild grumbling noises and then, as if George Clooney himself were watching and the whole coffee world was waiting for perfection to come dribbling from the little nozzle ... nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.
So I just had pikelets. Four of them with assorted spreads.
Why am I telling you this? My purpose is simply to warn you off buying frozen convenience foods of any sort, no matter how convenient they might be. Run with the inconvenience and have proper food.
And, if you need coffee, buy it freshly-made by a barista.
If you still need perking up, take a peek inside the nearest brown paper bag. There might be pikelets.
- Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.