We said: Midwinter Lunch Break

L: We thought you might be getting bored reading about our sexual escapades so we decided to do a sex free post for a change.

V: Sex boring? Sex with L is never boring, but I can understand what he means - I'm sure reading about even the hottest of our encounters could become boring to our readers week after week. On with our sex-free story:

L and I were chatting online one day recently, working out which day that week would work best, based on our schedules, to have lunch together. Our time is much more restricted these days. We only have so many opportunities to meet up with each other weekly for play time - and if something happens to mess with those arrangements, then we don't get to play at all. Thankfully, lunch is a little more flexible, or some weeks, we wouldn't get to see each other at all.
We chose to meet the following day and I asked L for ideas of what he would like to eat. The weather here now is so mild, I was excited when L suggested we cook our own lunch outdoors.
I've never been camping, exactly - I've never slept outdoors or even been in a tent, for that matter. I am, however, from a small third-world country and certainly have some experience with "roughing it" - I'm not really bothered by dirt, bugs and those sorts of things. I'm fine with making the best of my surroundings. I also love to cook and really enjoy the times when I'm able to cook for L. So to expand my cooking chops, I was very excited with the idea of cooking outdoors over a camp stove. We've done it a couple times previously - once I made omelets and the other time, L cooked for me and made bacon sandwiches.

L: I've camped a lot so I have all the required gear, stoves and pans and the like so V didn't have to bring her good equipment out into the wild.

V: Yes - so I told L he could bring the stove and pots and I'd bring the food. We threw ideas back and forth about what to make. Of course, it would have to be something fairly quick and simple - it was our lunch break after all. Quesadillas were suggested, but eventually we decided on grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Okay, so that's not really cooking in my books, but it was still great fun to plan the meal and prepare it outdoors.

L: V is always super organized and had two bags of food and gear with her. We decided not to carry everything all the way to the picnic shelter we had used previously, since there was very little chance of rain. We came across an unsheltered picnic area closer to the entrance and decided to set up there.

V: I was kind of glad for that, to be honest. It was fairly wet and muddy, so I was a bit worried thinking about the big hill we'd have to go down to get to the sheltered area. It wouldn't be too great to be sliding down the mud hill on my ass with our gear spread all over the hill by my flailing hands!

L fueled the stove and got it the burners lit while I set up the soup in a pot and the sandwiches in a frying pan. Once ready, I put the food on to heat. We eat outdoors a lot, so I actually have quite a bit of picnic gear that we use regularly. I pulled out bowls, plates, spoons, napkins, wipes, etc., pausing in between to flip over the sandwiches. I kept checking the soup every couple of minutes - since I had mixed it with milk and knew it would boil over if we weren't careful.

L: It was colder than I expected, I guess I should have been thankful that there isn't two feet of snow on the ground. I did wear my winter boots and a hat so I was pretty warm. V was in running shoes and even though she is usually averse to wearing mittens, she wore a pair on this day.

V: Yeah - I thought he'd kick my butt if I didn't dress warmly. lol All the little details looked after, L and I stood chatting by the stove, sharing a brief peck or a hand squeeze now and then. Suddenly I heard a hiss and I moved quickly, realizing the soup was, indeed, boiling over. I grabbed the entire pot off the burner quickly to minimize the mess. I replaced it with a second pot full of what would soon be hot chocolate. The sandwiches were also ready, so I poured out the soup into the bowls and cut the sandwiches and we sat across from each other and ate. It was pretty cold out and it's hard to cook and do things with mittens on - one of the reasons I loathe them - so my hands were freezing and I was happy for the hot bowl of soup to warm them up a bit. Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup never tasted so good!

L: It was funny that it was probably less than two minutes after V checked the soup and said she was watching it carefully that it boiled over. Good thing my stove already looks like it has survived a war, a little bit of spilled soup didn't make much of a difference.

V: True, though I did clean it up for you at the end anyway. Earlier in the day, I had made some dessert - something like a sticky toffee pudding - and we had that while we sipped our hot chocolate and it was very yummy indeed. The chocolate was actually too hot to drink except the tiniest of sips, so while it cooled a bit, I used a bottle of water to wash out the pots and frying pan and then started to pack away everything into three bags - one for dirty items, one for garbage and one for everything else. While I did that, L packed up the stove and carried it back to the car and then came back to help me carry the remaining bags.

L: Strangely though we had seem numerous dog walkers on our previous rainy day outing there were none around this time out.

V: You're right! I didn't see another soul while we were there. I didn't see our coyote friend either! An hour and fifteen minutes after I had picked him up, I dropped L back to work. As always, I'd had a great time with L. He's a very outdoorsy guy and while I have mostly been an indoor gal, I'm finding I truly enjoy getting outside and doing outdoor things - and not just when it's warm either! Dressing warmly makes all the difference!

L: When I returned to my car that evening I was reminded of the day by the smell of camp fuel. I guess I hadn't got the lids on the stove fuel tank and fuel can as tightly as I thought. Nothing driving with the window open for a few minutes wouldn't fix.