Saucy

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow, 

The visit to the UK has now changed status from "looming" to "impending". As you know I'm a bit grumpy about it but am trying to find positivity in the situation.

So today I asked the team if I could bring anything back from the UK for them. This is after I told Caro I would go into a branch of Boots* and buy stuff and things for her. I do not yet know WHAT stuff and things but it might be fun to do it virtually, if I can get the timing right. 

Fazzy asked for me to come back safe and Briar asked me to kidnap her best friend (currently in Sheffield). 

But Ellie came through and asked me to post her an entire box of Prawn Cocktail crisps. ("Crisps" not "chippies" if you please.) 

Ellie is a Kiwi woman in all respects, but visited the UK often and can do a remarkably funny English accent which sounds like a cross between Penelope Keith and Mollie Sugden. 

Jasper also has a list. He wants me to send him some freeze-dried chicken bits which may or may not make it past NZ Customs. God knows why they object to them, but they do. 

I also have a list of my own. If I can manage it, I am going to:

- Go to Greggs for sausage rolls**
- Go to Pret for an egg and tomato baguette, a coffee, a pulled pork toastie, a pecan slice and (most likely) a second coffee***

It was in the background of making all these plans to amuse myself while visiting Yorkshire that Shenée sent the group a text saying "Oh my god did anyone realise the Houses of Parliament are on a sauce bottle?"

(It was a trivia question in today's Dominion Post quiz.) 

Hence today's picture which I sent her along with my reply YES. I actually buy Fruity Sauce from the online British Corner Shop and put it on my sub-par sausage rolls here. It's about the only British thing I buy these days****. LOVE Fruity Sauce*****.

I expect there will be other things I'll pick up too. Including the M&S Extra Chocolately Biscuits that the Princess typically sends us. But I at least I am SORTED for Fruity Sauce.

I might have to get an extra suitcase for coming back.

S.

* Caro really misses Boots. There is no equivalent shop in Aotearoa. There are large pharmacists, but they are like chemists in the UK and a bit useless and there's Farmers which is sort of like BHS. Even if you stuck the two of them together, it's still not like Boots. 

** They have sausage rolls here, of course they do, but they are surprisingly dense and over-sausaged. The sausage meat is like this HUGE roll in the middle of very little pastry. One cannot bear to be over-sausaged. Amirite ladies?

*** I f*cking miss Pret SO MUCH.

**** Also Battenberg. I buy Battenberg a lot. But Caro eats it all and I can't even get near it. 

***** Never been a fan of "regular" HP sauce.