The Griper's Times

THE long list of foods which look like they should be vegetarian but quietly aren't could fill a whole bundle of notepads. It feels like one area where we haven't made much progress even as meat-free diets have become more and more common. In terms of veggie ranges in supermarkets and the choice when eating out it's light and day compared with when I chucked in the chicken nuggets in the mid-1990s. Back then my local pub's only concession was a chip butty and during one holiday to a hotel in the Lake District I had to settle for an omelette three nights on the trot. I shudder to think what their vegan option would have been, other than perhaps the offer of a spade and directions to a local farmer's potato field. The frozen food section could be equally unimaginative, with grim offerings like garlic grills - dry as grave dirt - and ploughman's pasties, which could have been exhumed from said dirt. This feels like a distant past in an age when even the likes of KF...

RIVERSIDE: My first walk by the water in May 2020. THERE'S a path by the river I found during the first lockdown where I still go for a walk most days. The first time I visited in May 2020 it was the furthest I'd been from home - a mile or thereabouts - for about eight weeks.  The skies were blue, the hedges were frothy with blossom and after weeks indoors the paths seemed almost dizzy with dog-walkers, joggers and cyclists. It may have been partly perception. After a lengthy period in which even exchanges with the postman took place through a pane of glass, outdoors was always going to feel especially wide open. But the phenomenon of local people crowding into locals parks and green spaces was also very real. It was the obvious paradox of behaviour changes which had shuttered pubs and shops, emptied roads and left city centres like ghost towns.  I have to admit that I was one of those who in the spirit of "staying local" found myself exploring places I've previou...