The day Jennifer ate a worm!

Apologies to regular readers for a prolonged silence since my last posting. A family tragedy, kids with medical needs and other personal matters have meant that I have not posted for a while.

But I'm back - hopefully here to stay!

Oh - and while I was MIA - we passed 10,000 Page Views! Amazing! Thanks. 10,014 to be exact, before today.

It is not often, as you will know if you have followed this blog, that I devote an entire posting to one person. However - in a break with tradition, I shall do so today. Because we had such magnificent facial contortions and manifest horror.............the day Jennifer ate a worm!

Once again we had a small group of Americans in-house - this time from a place called Noo Yark - wherever that is, and once again we served Mopane worms. We had, in this one serving two records broken - the one being the fastest consumption of a worm by an American (in this case Dr Sylvia and Marvin Reimer - 23 seconds) and also the slowest. By Jennifer. 22 minutes.

Herewith in pictorial form is a 20-minute period in her life which she would rather not have endured......

 Firstly the worms arrived, and were greeted with the usual horror. There is always a moment of quiet introspection when the worms first make an appearance - and this was no exception.

I call this picture "Study in dismay". Providing you don't look at Michael the Waiter, that is!

Michael the Waiter thought the idea of representatives of the worlds most powerful nation (after China, that is) eating Mopane worms was a funny one. Jennifer disagreed:

As one by one the various group members ate their worms, the rest of the group looked on and laughed. All except one laughed, that is:

Finally - after much discussion and a little 'pinky-swear' agreement, Jennifer and Ashley placed half a worm on their forks, and prepared to eat. (Being clever - they had cut the worms in half, so that they wouldn't have so much to eat. Being not-so-clever, they therefore both placed just a worm butt in their mouths, instead of a whole worm!)

By this stage Jennifer was really enthusiastic about eating a Mopane worm.

Or............maybe not?

The furrowing of brows and grimacing finally ended 22 minutes after the worms first appeared when they managed to place the forks into their mouths in unison....

Despite a healthy slug of Coca~cola to wash it down - nothing was going anywhere fast, and a little help was needed to stop it spraying across the table...

Finally, after an interminable pause - it was swallowed. And the applause rang out loud and clear. And none applauded louder and more enthusiastically than:

A smile at LAST!

The next blog posting will be of the other group members eating Mopane worms!

Have a really great day!