by Marit Meredith

Created on: January 21, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

THE CAULDRON IS BUBBLING

My nose started twitching the minute I slipped through the door. The old witch! She knows full well that I can't stand the stuff any more, but the whole house reeks of it.
She's a good cook; I'll say that for her. Well, I can't tell a lie, can I? She always was good in the kitchen, but the morsels she leaves out for me these days, are always the same. The mild English stuff, never any other variety. Not that I'd want cheese of any sort these days. So I have to go out for a bite to eat. Next door's not too bad and I've found a short cut. Thank goodnes for small mercies, I say.

Things weren't always like this and she wasn't always an old witch, dont get me wrong. She used to woo me with her culinary skills at one time. My mouth would water whenever she got busy in the kitchen; specially when she threw everything together in that cauldron of hers and it magically changed into a wonderful concoction fit for a king, let alone little old me. I'd sit in my favourite chair by the fire with a glass of something warming, being waited on hand and foot. Oh, it was a good life all right. But those days have gone. She has long since stopped catering for me, or doing anything else for me, for that matter. There's someone new in her life now, and he smells almost as bad as the rotten old cheese. Now she cooks fish; poached, fried, deep fried; cod, sprat, whitebait. Salmon sometimes. Personally I used to prefer her curries, back in the days when I was in favour; the hotter the better; made from scratch and with best stewing beef. Not even the Curry House could do better. But I begged her to stop putting that offensive grated cheese on top. Please!' I said. 'It doesn't belong.' But it didn't make any difference. She'd just pile on some more. I hated the stuff then; I hate it even more now. Just thinking about the horrid yellow goo slithering atop my hot Madras, made me come out in hives. Actually, I think that's when things started to go downhill. She didn't like being critizised in the kitchen; that was her domain. I was never allowed in. That day, when things got a bit out of hand and everything changed, I only asked what she was muttering about in there - and the next thing I know she's staring at me with her wild eyes, screeching and pointing her long, sharp fingernails in my face like something out of a scary cartoon, promising all kinds of strange things to come my way. Leave it out, I said, and hold the cheese!' I could smell the curry, you see.

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