Bah Humbug! It's December, again - 8 more days to go

Janet Yellen's Christmas gift to the world

Real Bah Humbug of a day. Eight days to go, and Ms Yellen gives the world a Christmas rate hike gift. Sigh. So my mortgage will go up, supermarket prices will be hiked, again, as if they didn't need another excuse - no more boxes of cherries at $99 - they'll be $125 in the new year.

Sarcasm aside, I shall be scrooging money away into bank accounts and convincing my boys that they'll thank me sometime in the future. This is where searching for special offers and coupons will become an art. I am wondering if I can top mother of two, Holly - the extreme couponer of 2015 and pay for the next month's shop in coupons and vouchers? I have $160 of vouchers, I suppose that is a start.

But, I am woefully far off the £1,200 that Holly managed to collect.

Vouchers are funny things, they are sort of like money, but not. Some of them have no expiry date, which means you are under no pressure, whilst others have an expiry date, a shelf life. So, if you hit that, then wham, you've just thrown away free food or something else.

Then there are the vouchers that promise you 50% off something, or two for the price of one. As long as you spend $600. I don't want to spend $600, so please do not send me vouchers promising me a discount or $100 off, if I have to spend more than I would have done in the first place. 

I fell for that one yesterday. I popped into the Cocoa Tree chocolate shop. I only wanted one box of chocolates for a gift. But then, there was this sign that said: "Buy three, get one free."

Instead of shrugging my shoulders and walking to the cashier, I then wasted 10 minutes deliberating what other three items I should purchase. None of which I needed or really wanted. And consequently, I spent twice as much as I had intended. 

So much for vouchers and special offers - there is nothing special about them at all. 

A New Year's resolution, to only buy what I go into the shop for and too bad if something looks enticing, as invariably, it's a con.

Bah Humbug ...

DOWN THE CHIMNEY ©

But Mum just shook her head and sighed,

'He's lodged right up inside,

I think his rather largish tum,

Has far surpassed his bum.'

And Dad then had a strange idea,

To bring some Christmas cheer,

We'll pull the sack with a large hook,

To dislodge it from the nook.

Bah Humbug, again - Do I really need more vouchers?

Bah Humbug! It's December, again - 19 more days to go

The price of cherries

Christmas isn't Christmas without cherries, and a whole bag of exotic fruits that only seemed to grace our shops in the winter months when I was a child. I make it sound like some Dickensian flash-back. It wasn't so very long ago, but I suppose, I only remember eating fruit when it was in season. Even when I moved to Singapore, some 20 years ago (oh gosh, really? that long ago?), the fruit was seasonal. Thank goodness, as we were only subjected to the rancid pong of durians for the couple of months they were in season.

But, like everything on our shelves these days, the global transport and distribution hub means that we can eat cherries, strawberries, and if you really must, durian, most months of the year.

Where is the fun in that?

It's like being able to eat Cadbury's creme eggs all year round. The novelty wears off. What's the point of buying creme eggs at Easter if you can get them any time of the year?

And so the same with cherries. Except, cherries still seem to be reserved exclusively for a couple of seasons of the year. One of them is Christmas. Unlike the mandarin oranges, apples and bananas I used to find at the bottom of my Christmas sack - yes, we had sacks, or rather old pillow cases, I suppose because no one in the family had big feet - anyway, unlike the other fruits, cherries do not lend themselves to being stuffed into stockings or sacks.


Cherries, abundant in July, in the UK, are packed with antioxidants, and something called, anthocyanins, so everyone is keen to advise us. They also help you sleep. I have not tried it, as I do not have enough matresses to pile one on top of the other in some mad princess-and-the-pea-like manner to see whether they hinder or help.

They supposedly stop gout, reduce muscle pain, slow ageing skin, and are good for the heart. What a miracle fruit. And, if you live in Victoria, Australia, round about Christmas time, you can go and pick your own. I always thought that was only for strawberries. Never mind.

Well, with all this hype about cherries being a miracle fruit, you would have thought that the supermarkets would be keen to sell them by the box load so as to keep customers healthy and eating whatever makes us feel unhealthy.

Unfortunately, that is not the case, and once again, this year, I picked up a box of cherries and then replaced it on the cooler shelf, after emitting a slight squeak (to muffle an expletive). What might have cost me some S$6 in the UK earlier this summer, and that would have been for two boxes, was on special offer for S$19.99! 

Special offer??

And then the real shock - my eyes wandered up to the higher shelves; and there sat a rather large box of cherries. Surely, these must be more affordable?

$99.99. Just shy of $100 for a box of cherries. I began to wonder whether the stones are made of gold. It was only a wonder, because I left the box on the shelf.

So, I suppose we will never know if the cherries imported into Singapore have gold stones inside.


Unless, of course, you have an exceedingly kind friend, who turns up for lunch with a box (the smaller one), of cherries, a tub of whipping cream and a box of mince pies for lunch. We ate salad, hummus and taboulé first.



With great anticipation, I bit into my first cherry of the year in Singapore - the stone was not made of gold.

Thank you, Monica. You made my Christmas :)


http://www.care2.com/greenliving/11-health-benefits-of-the-beautiful-cherry.html

http://www.choosecherries.com/health-and-nutrition/

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/natasha-turner-nd/cherries-benefits_b_3757989.html

https://www.cherryhill.com.au/pick-your-own