Thurs 20th Nov.

I venture into Canterbury again, primarily to see if Marks and Spencer have anything to tempt me to spend my birthday voucher on in their 20% off day. It turns out they haven’t, and even if they had, I can’t be bothered joining the enormous queues for the changing rooms and tills. Naturally I visit Canterbury Wholefoods. I stock up on those items I’ve recently come to think of as “the usual things” as well as a bar of Plamil’s vegan alternative to milk chocolate. I go mad and buy a sandwich for lunch there too – Vegan Bean Burger, Chilli Jam and Sprouts. Luckily, the sprouts are alfalfa and radish sprouts (Radish sprouts? I’ve never come across them before.), as opposed to Brussels sprouts. And the chilli “jam” is made up of peppers, tomatoes, chillis, cumin, ginger, sugar and balsamic vinegar. A notice tells me that the sandwiches are made in the Good Food Café above the shop. Feeling utterly reckless, I also buy a vegan cake (not made in the café) for afters. This turns out to be a little on the heavy side, but, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not that fussy, and enjoy it anyway.

Holland and Barrett has Jumbo Sos Rolls in today so we’re okay for tomorrow’s lunchboxes.

Before leaving Canterbury, I swing by The Goods Shed. This is a wonderful daily Farmers’ Market, held in a converted – yes, you guessed it – goods shed next to Canterbury West railway station. Here, unsurprisingly, I buy fruit and veg. Much of it is of the non-EU knobbly kind with real soil still attached. I love this place; I don’t know why I haven’t been for so long.

It’s a mad dash to prepare a beany vegetable casserole for an early tea. We’re having tea early because we’re all off to watch Sally in her school’s Dance Evening. Yes, more prancing around on the stage. Actually, it’s a bit of a feat to actually be going to the evening this year. For the last three years I’ve bought tickets to go and someone or other’s always been ill and we’ve ended up not going. So now there’s great excitement and anticipation in the air. We have to drop Sally off an hour before the show starts, so to fill in the time we head into Canterbury city centre and a Wetherspoons (spell check comes up with “waterspouts” here!) pub. The Thursday curry night menu is out on the tables and I note that they have one that is suitable for vegetarians, and …if you order extra poppadoms instead of naan, it’s suitable for vegans. I’m impressed that they’ve thought of this. And they have a veggie option in their Christmas menu which looks imaginative. Though, as Nick points out, there is only the one veggie choice among several meat options on the curry menu. Although I do appreciate it when I go to a restaurant or a “do” and there’s a vegetarian option, it would be SO nice to have a choice, like the other people. I find it odd that the providers just assume that all vegetarians will like the option they’ve put forward, whilst not expecting all meat-eaters to want the same thing. After all, we’re usually paying the same price as everybody else. They get a choice; we have to put up with what we’re given, having paid quite a lot for the privilege. Luckily, I like pretty much everything, so I’m usually okay.

Anyway, the Dance Evening is very entertaining and we go home worn out with clapping.