First of all, hello to my subscribers, and also to my casual readers. I was very happy to have start moderating comments today, and I hope you found my answers useful.

It’s been a busy weekend readers. Worked late on Friday then had a few drinks with the neighbours. Saturday was breakfast with a hungover wife, then the quest continued to obtain a Wii controller with which to play GoldenEye. Following my post on Friday about needing to find one, I searched every conceivable shop in Devizes where I work to no avail. There is no games shop in this small Wiltshire market town, but I tried electronics stores and supermarkets (3). Nothing. I found this very frustrating, but I don’t live there. Surely Chippenham would give me better success?

Stop one – PC World/ Dixons. Nope. Sainsburys – no. Thankfully, a quick trip into town and the small (but pricey) independent games shop yielded success – and GoldenEye is much more playable with this controller – even if 007 Classic mode is very hard. I moaned  a lot about the poor shopping experience to my wife, who understood – she is from a rural community, where as me, I am used to big city living!*

Sunday morning we got up and went off  ‘to do something’** and so we trundled off to look at a White Horse – a peculiar feature of Wiltshire. Carved out of chalk hills, although the one we visited was actually white painted concrete.

Westbury White Horse

It was breezy up on that hill, and as we headed home in time to do some grocery shopping (I never said we got up early) I was desired for the ingredients for Tom Yum soup – a very fragrant Thai soup, which requires lemongrass, galangal, birdseye chillies, kafir lime leaves, fish sauce, spring onions, lime and coriander. Aside from the galangal and maybe the kafir lime leaves, I was confident I could get all this stuff in Sainsburys. HOW WRONG WAS I?

The answer is – a bit. No fish sauce. No galangal no kafir lime leaves. I was mildly peeved. However, they did stock a Tom Yum soup paste, which it turns out makes a pretty good version, even if I do say so myself. Wife also impressed – good job!

I would still like to make it from scratch, and I did add fresh lemongrass and coriander. and the lack of decent shopping where I live is beginning to disturb me. Could this actually mean that they were right in the 80s, and Queensgate, Peterborough is the capital city of shopping? A disturbing thought for us all….

* Well, Peterborough. Small city living.

** My wife’s favourite thing to do to stop me playing computer games