Along with my battle between ‘why bother’ and ‘keeping up standards’, I am veering between comfort food and being clean and healthy.

Right this minute though, I am thinking of childhood comfort food.

Frey Bentos pies. I am not sure I would give one house room now, but then the idea you could use a can opener to take the lid off a raw pie and then cook and eat it within say half an hour seemed pretty impressive.

I think I might have mentioned before that butterscotch Angel Delight was a favourite and indeed was a favourite, I found out later in life, with Ethiopian refugees. ( By then it needed searching out and I am pretty sure you couldn’t find it in Waitrose Petersfield but an Ethiopian diaspora in London made it possible to locate – maybe still is for all I know.)

I don’t eat either of those any more but there is one comfort food which has stayed.

Heinz tomato soup.

That, with Dairylea sandwiches was what I ate when recovering from anything from measles to a bad cold.

And there is a tin always in my cupboard.

I was delighted to find that also some proper cook had it as her comfort food in an article at the back of some foodie magazine which I seem to have thrown out or I would credit her.

So, imagine my gasp of horror when the Best Beloved found, unusually I have to say, he was out of homemade soup took it and drank/ate it….

I had it to recover from pneumonia a couple of years ago, and I am very much hoping I won’t have to have it recovering from Covid.

( I have found a recipe to re-create the essence of Heinz and given that this lockdown won’t be over by a week on Tuesday, I might give it a try.)

Meanwhile, and I am rather hoping it isn’t a meanwhile, I am thinking of the chip sandwiches my mother brought my sister and I when she came home late from work and we were in bed.

Yes, white bread but from a ‘proper’ loaf, home cooked chips, salt and vinegar – all made by indefatigable grandmother.

These days I have dal as comfort food, cottage/shepherd’s pie ( and I have to say I make a decent lentil version which can be attested to by local neighbours) with homemade pickled red cabbage, posh mushrooms on toast, risotto, aubergine pie, a fish finger sandwich, cheese and jalapeño quesadillas, squid stew – but I am just showing off.

And there is always a tin of Smash in the larder. Remember that? Advertised by aliens? These days only for secret midnight feasts or on the better days of a recovery. No cornflakes from the packet for me.

Can I just point out, these are not to be used in place of proper mashed potatoes – Smash will not work well on the top of a cottage pie.

You need to rootle around the in the fridge and find something to sauté and add in – onions, chillis, sesame oil, tomatoes with oregano, always with a sprinkling of Marigold Bullion … or just butter.

That’s what living in Deepest Sussex does for you, sorry.