A Dairy-Free Stag Do
Its Monday morning. I’ve just made myself fairly unpopular by forgetting to turn off my work-day alarm clock. Sore heads groan at being woken at 6:40 rather than the agreed 8:10 and I am now convinced that there is a business case for an AI alarm clock that checks if you really want it to go off when you appear to be in different surrounding to normal the night before…
Today is the last morning of our bank-holiday weekend stag-do. A school friend of mine is getting married in a few weeks’ time. (I’ll no doubt have a review of that venue when it comes around). Three days away from Piglet and my wife. I miss them both. But writing this sat up in bed I’m guiltily grateful for the space and quiet.
My body is sore. I’ve bruised my hand, tightened the muscles in my legs and given myself a slightly sore head: I’m proud to have found the perfect soft spot between drinking enough alcohol this weekend to make myself feel churned like the butter I so can’t eat, but also so little alcohol that my heavier drinking friends wonder why I bothered! I drink fairly rarely and have virtually no tolerance this days. On the plus side it’s been a very cheap weekend in comparison!
Most of the physical grogginess, however, comes from the weekend’s activities. Namely, quad biking, archery and canyoning (think of paying to go white-water rafting only to find that at the last minute the instructor pushes you out of the raft and lets you tumble down the rapids head first). Each one of the activities has left its mark, strangely physical in their own way. Each one brilliantly good fun. We’ve been hosted by The New Swan Inn in Ystalyfera with the activities arranged by Call Of The Wild. Both have been brilliant in creating a fun, active getaway.
I feel strangely guilty admitting it but food has been easy and well managed all weekend, mostly as a result of only having to avoid milk and not soya. I’m reminded how much more difficult it is to manage two allergies than one. That said, I still had a couple of panics… Each day, a packed-lunch was provided to go with our activities. I’d been able to phone well in advance and explain my allergy and it helped that another guy on the weekend, my friend of 21 years and disgruntled alarm clock sharer, has the same. They clearly labelled two of the lunches as dairy-free and had gone to the lengths of including different crisps and a free-from chocolate bar. The main part of the lunch, however, was a ham sandwich. A white baguette with delicious looking ham and spread.
Spread. It always sets off alarm bells. There’s something about sandwiches that means that the allergens of the filling gets treated separately from the sandwich itself. I guess it comes from the realisation that the person making the sandwich is rarely the person making the filling. So I put the sandwich to one side and ate the rest. My friend chides me for being so distrusting and happily eats his. I feel a bit sorry for myself as my stomach rumbles after the exertion of quad biking and archery (both surprisingly tiring) and leaves me woefully inadequately prepared for the whiskey tasting that followed.
When we get back to the inn I get to ask the manager whether he know whether it would have been butter or something dairy-free. (Most spreads have butter-milk in even if they aren’t “butter” unless they are a deliberately dairy-free alternative). He isn’t 100% sure as he didn’t make them but is very confident that if they were labelled as dairy free then they’ll have been made with the correct spread. All I can say is that sandwich probably tasted all the better for having wanted to eat it for 3 hours more than everyone else.
There was one other tiny hiccup where some onion rings ordered at The Clock Works Pub accidentally came as a mix of onion rings and popcorn chicken. It would have been a pleasant surprise if it wasn’t for the fact that all the chicken was labelled as “buttermilk chicken” so I knew to dodge that one. What made up for that however was that they sold multiple puddings that were available as vegan alternatives. Puddings are usually the most disappointing part of any allergen menu. Unfortunately this would have been a different story if I was having to avoid soya but for these few days I don’t have to worry about that. As a result, I was treated to a chocolate praline tart with (vegan) ice cream. A treat as much for its rareness as anything else!
Overall it’s been a great weekend with good friends (old and new) and temporary escapism from the pulls of family life. Hearing my son say on the phone “daddy in river, coming home tomorrow”, yesterday did pull on the heart strings and I do very much look forward to getting back to the family. Even if it does mean I won’t be having more chocolate tart.