Amuse bouche... Talking turkey

‘Ithink we need to cut back on the training food now,” said Tina. It was an overdue suggestion, she felt. Really, they should have cut back on the shopping weeks and weeks ago, when all of Gareth’s events had been cancelled.

Still, however, the family shop continued to include more turkey mince than anyone could ever make palatable.

“You’re not actually in training any more,” Tina said. “So there’s no reason to keep eating like you are.”

“I’d like to maintain a certain standard,” said Gareth. He assumed the attitude of a little boy whose birthday had been cancelled. This would have had an effect on Tina one month earlier, but that ship had sailed.

There were to be no triathlons or muddy runs around the country this summer, or extreme events of any description that might win Gareth a weekend away from home, and that was that.

It wasn’t like Tina had anything fun coming up either, so her sympathy was limited.

“Enough with the turkey mince,” Tina said.

It wasn’t that Gareth made Tina or the kids eat the turkey mince. Gareth made his own meals, which had seemed like a considerate act on the part of the triathlete-in-training way back in the other world that was January, but which Tina suspected now was a really neat way to cop out of cooking for the rest of the family.

Tina had exhausted her entire repertoire of recipes at this stage, and the kids were exhausted with them, too.

“It’s very healthy,” said Gareth. “Very lean.”

Tina knew this. She’d heard this a lot. She’d put up with this patter for months, along with the detailed breakdowns of Gareth’s training schedules and goals.

“It’s very much taking up a lot of fridge space for one person’s food,” said Tina. “Now that we do one big weekly shop, it doesn’t work. You need to rejoin the family.”

“Or the family need to join me,” said Gareth. “Maybe just one or two days a week? Might do no harm.”

Was this a dig about her waistline? Tina wondered, though Gareth also had a few pounds sneaking around his waistline now he wasn’t exercising so much. He’d hate that, Tina thought, suddenly sorry for him.

“OK, one night of turkey mince a week,” Tina said. “But burgers, with a few chips, and maybe a glass of wine.”

“Grand,” said Gareth, “Sure we could probably do with clearing out some of the wine anyway.”

A dig? thought Tina.

“All those bottles for one person,” said Gareth. “I might as well help you out with them. It’s not like I’m in training.”