Oatcake

I know these things seem trivial, merely the drab minutiae of one of the more colourless and humdrum existences you are likely to have the misfortune to bump into, but they can have a surprising significance for me. There are hidden depths of meaning and deafening resonances in the most ordinary of events. Goodness knows how I will ever cope with the truly momentous when I spend so much time trying to fathom the mundane.

I bought some oatcakes today. Not the small, crisp, Highland variety; but the large, floppy, Staffordshire version. You know the type. Or if you don't, use your imagination. I don't buy them very often: I can't quite remember when I last did. But there was a time when I used to buy them frequently. In large quantities. And take them down to the bed & breakfast where I was staying during the week while working in the Deep South (or actually South East). It was fortunate I was never stopped by the police on one of these journeys: it would have been difficult to provide a convincing explanation of why I was smuggling large quantities of Staffordshire oatcakes across the country. The truth was, as always, fairly dull: the landlady of the bed & breakfast was a native of Staffordshire, who could fondly remember oatcakes being sold from street corners in traditional oatcake outlets which have now all but vanished, and who was downcast that it was not possible to find this delicacy in darkest Essex. (Although I did spot them in the local Sainsburys occasionally; probably a wayward delivery.) But I have to say that during those bitter years I ate more oatcakes than was good for me; and therefore the unhappy association between my dismal commuting life and the innocent oatcake is deeply ingrained by now. So having bought them, I probably won't enjoy them.