Seeing all the places you can pick up a ready-cooked roast chicken today it’s hard to imagine a town or even suburb without a Chicken Shop but when I was growing up there weren’t any. We kept chooks but having roast chicken was a real treat and one was enough for all of us with some left over to have cold the next day. (There would have been plenty of vegetables to fill us up.)
One special day my Aunty Mavis was down from Port Pirie and we went for a picnic at Victor Harbor which is about an hours drive south of Adelaide. Aunty Mavis was Mum’s sister and they never got on, even at 80+ years old Aunty Mavis would make digs about how spoilt, “Little Jeannie” was. Mum was the youngest of 13 children but we only ever knew the youngest four.
The day we went to Victor Harbor our picnic lunch included chicken and we sat on the foreshore under the shade of the Norfolk Island Pines to eat it. I was thoroughly enjoying my piece of chicken until I noticed little white things moving on it. They were maggots. I have no idea how or when they got onto it but they were there. I knew if I said anything Mum would be shamed in front of Aunty Mavis so I discreetly disposed of my piece of chicken and said absolutely nothing. The others all seemed to enjoy their lunch and I never told a soul about the extra protein I found in my piece of chicken.
You didn’t know that about Nana did you?
Musings of a Retiring Person 
One year Fred took the kids camping on Kangaroo Island. It was a disaster. He forgot his sleeping bag and nearly froze. It must have been in the May school holidays as it was shonas birthday when they were there. To celebrate he stopped at the shop and got her a packet of biscuits. The kids offered him a biscuit… They were driving. He took a bite then there were howls from the back of the van….. Poor Fred. he had his protein.
I have to say if I ate any I didn’t taste them, it’s just the look of them and the thought. Maybe they taste like chicken. 🙂
Family relationships can be quite interesting. I am researching a family tree where there was a family rift and 100 years on, no one knows why!
That’s the problem when no-one is around who you can ask then again maybe it’s better if some memories are lost!