Morning Swim at North Beach

Wren & I went for a morning swim at North Beach.  It was only 8am but already hot and bright with lots of swimmers in the water. The surf life saving club juniors were swimming and running with their red boogie boards.  Wren jumped over the little waves - worried about his sore thumb which he cut on the mandolin slicer last night while copying Dad and I chopping apples.

The Thumb Cut
The cut was a Drama. I had been using a Mandoline slicer to prepare apples for a waldorf salad Ingrid was taking for Thanksgiving in South Africa. Mandolins are vile appliances on which home cooks trade mortal risk for the chance to have perfectly thin and even slices of fruit. Nobody who has cut off the top part of their thumb can look at one without feeling a bit queazy.  Generally, when you buy a mandolin it comes with various parts:

• Liability disclaimer part
• Slicer Blade Part
• Grater Blade Parts
• Plastic vegetable grip part.

After a few months, only the slicer blade part remains because the other parts are stupid and have been lost in the back of the cupboard  Yes, I said it... stupid. Despite the demonstration videos, you really can't hold a carrot with this plastic grip thing. To do so, you have to pre-sculpt the vegetable into just-right shaped parts which wastes all the curved bits.

Everyone knows holding the fruit or vegetable is dangerous so I don't know why we do it but we do. In fact, if you google "Mandoline Slicer da" it prefills the phrase:

"Mandoline Slicer Dangerous" and gives you articles with titles like:

Whatever you do, do not select IMAGE SEARCH for "Mandoline Slicer Dangerous"

Anyway, we were talking about how dangerous it was and I was going slowly, so Dad took over slicing and went fast. I felt ill and walked out the kitchen because I was sure he was going to cut himself. Wren was watching and eating apple slices.

Dad put it down to lemonize the apples and Wren just picked up a wedge of apple and started slicing it fast "whizz whizz".

I screamed "Nooooooo!"

But he was already screaming "Arghhhhh" and bleeding everywhere while I yelled at him about a minute late about the Mandoline slicer.  I think there was a Fuck in there too.

It bled for a long while and took three bandaids, including a cool bandaid from Japan and caledula ointment to stop it.  It rather ruined the evening because Wren had ongoing commentary about his finger with themes like:

1. Will I get an infection?
2. OH GOD, I shook my hand it will start bleeding again.
3. Will I die of blood loss?
4. Why has Futurama stopped?
5. When will it stop throbbing?
6. I can't eat Thanksgiving in South Africa because of the pain.
7. I can't play iPad anymore.

Back to the Beach

So, this morning we went swimming at North Beach and despite swearing he would not swim, Wren was pleased that his cut did not sting. In fact, the bandaids fell off and it does not look so bad. Dad warned that the top of the finger will dry up and fall off.  I have not mentioned that to Wren yet as its only a small piece of finger but he is probably attached it it. Well, he is attached to it now and that would worry him.

The beach was stunning.  Warm water and small waves.  I took Wren out about 4 m from breaking waves past the little sandbank (right on shore) to a place that he could only just stand but could float up and down the waves holding onto the boogie board.  I said he could say "Home" anytime and I would take him back to the shallows.  He said "Home" twice - once when a wave was a little steeper than usual and once when he was concerned about a big wave. We plan to swim every day that there is sunshine.

Morning coffee at Juran was great.  David and I had soy.

David has headed back to Cape Town with his 100% Rye Bread and Garlic oil.