Mince pies

I should first note that I haven’t been very successful as a vegan. It’s easy not to buy milk, cheese, eggs, butter. Much harder not to buy a cheese pizza, or tortellini with cheese, or a piece of cake. When you want a sandwich on the fly, as I often do, the non-meat options are egg salad or cheese. So I’m not doing great.

Tonight, after meeting a series of deadlines, I ran to the bus stop. I was a few minutes early but the bus was even earlier apparently, so I gave up on going to Queen’s for tonight’s swing dance lesson. Instead, I went to Co-op, an ethical grocery chain, and bought four little mincemeat pies, which I believe have animal fat in them, even though they seem to be just raisins, currants, and sugar. Anyway, I took my little tarts to my former neighbour, Marshall’s, for a catch up. He’s away tomorrow to Alicante with his lady partner, Joan.

He lives a 10 minute walk from the house but I rarely see him. He socialises with one men’s group on Monday evenings (the whiskey drinkers) and with another on Tuesdays (the Caledonian Smoothies). One of his sons visits on Fridays and he’s at one of his daughter’s on Sundays. And he and Joan go out for dinner a lot. He’s the most active 81-year-old you could hope to meet. As usual, I revelled in his kindness, good manners, puckish sense of humour, and good company. I miss him a great deal. I used to be able to look out my kitchen window and see him bustling around his kitchen. His house has been empty since he sold it and eventually there will be a solid wall where there are now windows into his kitchen.
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