A Chevy for Six, Please

Look at her gleam^^

I, Isabel, write from the solitude of an empty hotel room. Well, Rachel’s here but she’s deeply asleep and so would be no use in a fire. So for all intents and purposes, I’m on my own, and in the shit if there’s a fire.

Rick, leader of the pack, has just led his team of aspiring athletes out of the door with the words ‘come on you party poopers’. I don’t know why he called them this, because there’s no party, only a gym, and I hope to god they won’t be ‘pooping’ it. Anyway, that’s the background to how ive come to be alone. I’m no aspiring athlete and would only be a fraud if I tagged along with the big boys.

I’ve been left a task. I’m to prepare a breakfast feast for my hungry athletes for their return at 9:20. It’s a self-catering hotel room, to be clear. It’s not that I’ll be forcing entry to the main kitchens and disturbing the running of the establishment to prepare my family an omelette. So like a loyal housewife, I’ve let the other members of my family leave the nest to flourish and improve themselves while I stay home among my pots and pans to serve them. Far from stirring feelings of anger or upset in me at the overt sexism, this image brings a warm contented smile to my face. For those of you that read my last blog (its protagonists were me, a bike and a goading t-shirt, to jog the memory), think of the kitchen as the antithesis of the bike for me. There is nowhere I feel more comfortable. Every piece of machinery, be it oven, smoothie maker or electric whisk is an old friend that greets me with a shiny twinkle of its clean glass and tells me I’m safe. Don’t misunderstand me; it’s not that I’m such a good cook, simply that I like it there. Just like an amateur runner that sneaks onto the athletics track after a big race because he likes the red dust. I enjoy the smells and sights of a kitchen but no-one particularly enjoys the smells and sights I produce in it.

Breakfast is over now. As predicted, I enjoyed the preparation more than they enjoyed the result, but no matter. It’s an event of the past and the next big thing is dinner, which I won’t have any part to play in, and which will be eaten in Santa Barbara, where we will go in 20 minutes. My belongings are extraordinarily spread out, considering we’ve been here only 18 hours, so I need to stop doing this and find things. The time pressure is very real. Rick doesn’t do delayed departures. Bye pals