Monday 23 May 2016

Filled Sodas

It is, as we discovered last Thursday, hungry work for those lads and ladettes spectating at the motorbike races:


When I see the immortal words 'Filled Sodas' it reminds me of a few years ago.  For those of you not familiar with it, soda bread is a traditional Irish bread, made with flour and buttermilk.  It's typically cut into triangular shapes, then cut into two and filled with anything you want - bacon, sausage, egg, any combination you like, or usually all three.

Anyway, a few years ago I was on my way to an important meeting (Ed: Aren't all meetings important?) and felt the need to stop for a bite to eat.  Normally I would have had my sandwiches with me, but not today - no, that would have been too easy.  I stopped at a service station which did hot food and ordered a filled soda.  Now you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of filled sodas I've had in the 50+ years of life on this earth - it would not normally be something I would go for.  But on this occasion it seemed like a good idea.  The lady doing the cooking was about to hand it over when she hesitated and asked if I would like an egg in it as well.  What the heck, I thought, why not push the boat out and have an egg in it - sure what could possibly go wrong?



As I sat in the car some minutes later and bit into the soda I found out exactly what could go wrong.  The soft fried egg, of course, squirted out all over the front of my crisp, white, business shirt.  And I was not near enough home to go change, the meeting was looming and I still had an hour to drive to get there.  To say that panic set in, was, dear readers, an understatement.

By good fortune I was close to the hotel where I swim regularly, so in I dashed into the changing rooms, covering everything up under a coat as I passed the receptionist and washed the shirt out in the sink as best I could.  Then it was a mad time to get the thing dry enough to wear (using a hairdryer), trying my best to hide the creases and marks that remained.  Eventually I got the shirt into some sort of acceptable state and I headed off to my meeting, where as you can guess I was not on top form.  Somehow I got through it, but it was a traumatic experience.

So, my friends, should you ever find yourselves in Ulster, beware the Filled Sodas.

2 comments:

  1. A brilliant photographic report from the side of the race tracks, Michael.
    And as for the story... oh, that made it well for a good laugh out here west of Shetland for a change! I could feel the panic quite fine all the way over here, to tell the truth. Great story, and thanks for letting me know all about Filled Sodas just in case I should run into something like that at some point :))

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    1. Cheers Roy...I'm still traumatised thinking about it now :)

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