Rubbing salt in the wound

I walked into the kitchen the other evening and caught Mrs H in the act of writing me a "Could you just do" list.

I peeped over her shoulder to see what

tasks would occupy my lunch hour the following day.

Mrs H's notes are often quirky - if I can read

them.

Her writing, you may recall, is very neat but mostly illegible.

From what I could see, this was no exception, but Mrs H was ahead of me.

She knows I will make fun of her notes, so she gets in first and gives me the translation. The note then becomes a mere aide memoire.

She could see I was puzzling over the first

item.

It read: "Peanut butter, organic, crunchy; one with salt, one without."

In the interests of health, Mrs H uses very little salt in the kitchen.

Even if a recipe has salt as one of the ingredients, more often than not Mrs H will leave it out.

And I must admit, I don't notice.

The only exceptions are peanut butter and chips; Mrs H is partial to a sprinkling of salt on her chips, so the rule is relaxed.

So peanut butter with salt would not be a surprise, but one of each?

I queried why and, of course, Mrs H had an explanation, one that I would never have thought of in a million years.

"There's some salted butter in the fridge I got for a recipe. I need to use it up.

"So if I have the butter on my toast, I'll use the unsalted peanut butter, but if I have our usual spread, I'll use the salted."

Of course, I should have known.

Mrs H always has an explanation for what she does and says, even though I may not always agree with it.

On Wednesday evening, she was going out. On occasions like this, Fortress catering is not available so I have a hot meal at work.

While I do enjoy Mrs H's cooking, it does make a change to have access to food that may not always appear on the Fortress menu.

Mrs H doesn't ask what I've had, so unless I'm foolish enough to tell her, I can go well off message without any retribution; even add a dash of salt and she'll never know.

The other upside to this is that there is no veg chopping or other kitchen-related labouring in the evening.

I prepare my own tea - and I can eat at the same time as the rest of the country.

On Wednesday, I decided on a humble cheese sandwich. I had cut the bread; spread on the stuff that you couldn't believe isn't butter and was slicing the cheese when Mrs H appeared.

"NEYULL!" she bawled.

I stopped in mid slice.

I was only making a sandwich, so what on earth could I be doing wrong?

"Don't do that on the breadboard! Look, you've got butter on the breadboard. It makes such a mess. It soaks in.

"Why didn't you do that on a plate? You won't clean it!"

For goodness' sake, it's so much easier on the breadboard.

It's not that easy to cut a sandwich in half on a plate with the breadknife.

When I have a sandwich, I do make sure Mrs H sees me with a tomato, a bit of lettuce and cucumber so she knows I am making an effort.

And it's always a good idea to have a banana randomly placed on the work surface so she sees evidence that I am working towards my five portions a day.

Mind you, I'm not sure she's convinced by my demonstrations of healthy options.

I think she takes it all with a pinch of salt.