Elephant House Cream Soda And Sit Ups

Are some of the things I've been doing in the last couple of days.

This eye surgery is a fascinating thing to recover from, that is if you're like me and can get fascinated by the simplest of things. I've been marvelling at the way the eye is healing and my vision through said eye is getting better. It's like seeing everything through a fog that is slowly clearing. As the fog clears, a little bit more each second, I get glimpses of pinsharp vision through the translucent bits. All looks good and the miracles of modern, albeit only available to those with some money, medicine continue to amaze me.

But, recovering is a pain in the arse, or eye in my specific case. There's not much to do without an eye, a statement I'm sure Mr Wonder would disagree with but I think you probably understand my view. Watching TV makes it hurt, reading makes it hurt, looking at porn my laptop makes it hurt and so do all the things that sick people traditionally do whilst recovering.

Even typing this is taxing and I can feel my eye starting to pound a bit. These are the sacrifices a dedicated blogger makes for the sake of a post. Listening to music is an enjoyable activity that I can do, one that I'm currently doing, partly to prove that us men can multi Red Hot Chili Peppers task with the best of them.

You know, parents are wonderful things aren't they? They nurture us, they do all that parental stuff over the years and, when we get to about forty and get divorced, they do some of that stuff all over again. My Dad, who some of you know in person, has been a stalwart in the last days. He drove me to the clinic to have the op done, he drove me back home and today he took me to the clinic for the one day check up, then dropped me back home.

I'm grateful, but the drives, or being a passenger, have been shall we say, hard work. They get old these parents, and my Dad has got to a stage in his life in which his driving operates by his own rules, no one else's, not the police's, not the government's and certainly not the highway code's.

He heads into a roundabout and takes the racing line, a plan that is okay for a chap driving at breakneck speed in a high performance car on an empty road. But his turn of pace has diminished a bit over the years so that necessity to take the racing line isn't there. It's just habit, unlike looking in the mirrors to see if there are any other cars in the vicinity. I've lost count of the number of times in these past 48 hours that I've surreptitiously glanced into a mirror to see an irrate driver in the car behind who's just been cut up by my Dad, who's wholly and blissfully oblivious to the whole thing. Even in Sri Lanka he'd be breaking the rules of the road. That's how bad it is.

On the way back from the clinic yesterday we stopped at one of the local Sri Lankan shops, a treat for both of us. My Dad bought curry leaves, Maldive fish and all the usual things he needed to stock up with.

My haul was very different. It was one that had no practical day to day uses, it consisted entirely of "novelty" items, but ones that I think you'll understand:

1. One bottle of genuine Elephant House cream soda.

Is there anything better than this nectar? Its colour is like nothing that ever occurs in nature, except maybe plutonium. I don't know what colour plutonium is but I would imagine it to be that bright greeny yellow. Watch manufacturers probably buy container loads of the stuff to use it as paint for the luminous bits on expensive watches. But it tastes of my childhood and of long holidays in Sri Lanka. It tastes of the warm glass bottles it used to come in and of Green Cabin chocolate eclairs. And it's now in my fridge.

2. Six mutton rolls.

Pancake stuff, filled with mutton and potato curry and fried in breadcrumbs. Six of the beauties. Well there's four left now. I reckon we actually can buy better ones here in the UK than I've had in Sri Lanka for a long time now. Which is nice.

3. Two Godamba rolls.

A couple of them, filled with the scrumptious and mouth watering Sri Lankan mixed vegetable curry. That one that tastes of mush, but lovely mush, with a few discernible vegetables here and there. They're just a fading memory now.

4. Two large bottles of Lion Lager.

No description needed. Except to say that they are better than the elephant house cream soda. One sip takes me to the Galle Face Hotel, watching the sunset and wanting for nothing. Just me and Colombo and that sunset and that sea.

Now you see where the sit ups will be needed.

This convalescing thing is hard you know!