Colm O'Regan: Custard, colouring, and more custard... Why don’t I do this more often?

Part 2 — some more easy things we (ok I) don’t do enough of

Colm O'Regan: Eat more custard and get that 'yellow stuff' the right consistency of gloop...

Getting into the duds

What my mother used to call the 'rough clothes' (from a middle-English word ‘dudde’ meaning rags).

The ones that are not meant to visible to visitors. We don’t wear duds so much now. 

We have too many nice clothes for one 'Oul Yoke Of A Jumper' to bear the brunt of all our stains. 

Even people with real jobs that involve changing one physical material into another have their Snickers trousers and their hi-vis jacket with 30 zips. 

But occasionally you’ll see a jumper that has fallen on hard times and an anorak that is 30% silage.

But whatever your knocking around clothes are, get into them. Fast. 

Occasionally I’ll come home from A Nice Thing That Needed Good Clothes and inexplicably delay getting into duds. 

Hard shoes, unforgiving trousers, a white shirt, a blazer... you can’t eat beans in them. 

I feel tense. Then there’s groan of delight as I’m in my rough clothes. 

Never mind not getting beans on them, I’ll eat beans off them.

Rhubarb tart... with custard

Eating custard

Custard — where are you these days? I blame the lack of bowls.

Since restaurant desserts started arriving on Gyproc and other non-plates, the custard spilled onto the tablecloth and got the road from the hotel.

But that shouldn’t stop us making it. I have no idea what’s in the custard. 

Yellow, powder, milk, heat? The lesser-known follow-up to the Salt, Fat Acid, Heat bestseller.

Get some apple tart — make it or buy it in Applegreen — but either way it’s for the Birds, the blue, yellow and red tin. 

Maybe we’ve had too much bad custard. Custard is like porridge. There are many ways to get it wrong. 

But get that ‘Yellow Stuff’ the right consistency of gloop, balance the mouthful mix so that you don’t have all custard or all apple tart at the end and you’ll never think about whether your crème is correctly bruléed again. 

Or just have the custard by itself, by yourself, you pervert. I won’t judge. Just don’t leave it so long the next time eh?

Colouring 

Last week I recommended drawing. But that might seem too much effort.

How about colouring?

You know you’ll be good at that. If you can reverse a car into a space then colouring between the lines is no bother.

And you don’t need to buy an adult colouring book. We got some before from a previous 'happiness project' phase. 

But the toddlers found them and just drew large lines in crayon through every page. I liked the anarchy of that... a protest against the military industrial colouring complex.

Just start colouring in Os in things, teeth on flyers, doodling. Not for sharing. Not for likes. Just you and your biro.

Ordinary Telly

Maybe you’ll do it while watching Ordinary Telly. I don’t mean telly that isn’t as good. I mean telly that never gets reviewed. It doesn’t have a crazed fandom. 

Watch Nationwide. There’s a bit in it about a retired nun with a passion for beekeeping. There’s a documentary on TG4 about stone walls. (If there isn’t, there should be.) 

When it’s over, it’s over. There is no 'Next Episode?' panic. That is its essence. No commitment. A televisual fling.

Phone-free

Wait somewhere, the dentist, the bus... WITHOUT THE PHONE. I don’t mean, leave the phone at home. God no. The anxiety of that. What if someone was trying to ring you? 

Although if you’re Gen Z, imagine the anxiety of someone trying to ring you. Bring the phone. But don’t use it. 

Just stare straight ahead at everyone else with their heads down.

Don’t forget to be smug.

Your neck will thank you. Your mind will thank your neck.

Job done. Time to get into my duds.