The essence of winter …

It’s winter again. I didn’t notice exactly when it happened. I suppose my mind was on other things: National Standards, truancy, neat handwriting, non-gender-specific language in my reports even when I’m writing about a boy who has a gender, and Kyrgyzstan.

The arrival of winter isn’t something to be trifled with, which brings me neatly to the essence of winter. Trifle.

Don’t bother faffing about making your own sponge cake. Buy one. Do faff about making your own custard and I don’t mean the stuff from a box. Adding milk and stirring isn’t making anything. It does count as regular vigorous exercise though.

So in goes the sponge, and in goes the sherry. Madeira might be best. Don’t use raspberry jam. Use frozen raspberries instead. Which brings me neatly to a piece of trivia – the Turkish word for raspberry is pronounced ‘ah-hoo-doo-doo’. Where was I? The custard. Make the custard properly. With milk and eggs and sugar and vanilla pods and time. There are no shortcuts to success.

And when it’s all cool and I mean in all senses of the word, dude, on goes a layer of whipped cream. Don’t even think about low-fat, tasteless, cholesterol free cream. If that appeals, eat a carrot instead.

Like revenge, trifle is a dish best served cold. So stick it in the fridge and go for a five kilometre run. Or read a few chapters. Or have an afternoon sleep.

There’s an honesty to trifle that you don’t hear much of nowadays. It doesn’t take much thought, not like deciding whether to rip off taxpayers via the MPs’ expense claims. How dare they steal from tax-paying NZers. They stole from their employers and shouldn’t that result in summary dismissal and criminal charges?

Imagine if a teacher claimed for mini bar purchases when attending a conference in New York or Paris or Copenhagen.

How is it that teachers can do the magic they do without attending extravagant conferences in exotic locations but the Minister of Vegetable Gardens and Untied Shoelaces must attend with her partner, and to buy gifts for the others at the conference, and fly business class – while the masses are paying for carbon credits and higher GST?

I’m ok about taxes. They pay for social services and police and judges. But I’m not happy about paying higher GST to pay for MPs’ minibar bills, or a $700 taxi ride that he can’t remember.

When you get tired of all that, eat trifle.

— Peter Giddens