Covid: I've found a sweet recipe to help beat the lockdown blues – Hayley Matthews

We’d been out picking up some Christmas clothes for my mum who’s still very frail in hospital. We wanted to make sure that she’s got something nice to wear for Christmas.

It was a bitter-sweet shopping trip because as we perused M&S looking for something festive and cosy, laughing at the novelty Christmas cards, all I could think was how I’ve no idea if I’ll even be able to see my mum on Christmas day this year.

It filled me with a fear that stopped me in my tracks. As I dragged my spirits back to the sparkles of the ladies’ Christmas jumper section, I decided we needed cheering up, despite being limited for choice at 8pm on a Thursday night.

As we were driving back, we sat at the lights at Baileyfield Road and that’s when it happened! Popping out at us were massive black and hot pink letters spelling “SUGAR HOUSE”.

I said to Harris “take a look at that place, we need to go!” So we investigated this new wonder at the top of Kings Road and, oh my word, it was just what we needed.

More to the point, what Portobello needs and what I reckon everyone needs a little of just now, which is, sweeties, ice cream, waffles and anything in-between.

I got chatting to Gary behind the counter who told me he’s known as “Gary the ice-cream van man” or “Gary the Icey!” and after some thought and a family discussion in these new times of Covid, he had decided to open an all-singing, all-dancing ice cream parlour.

Anyone who opens a business just now has my utmost respect, however, to have queues as long as the prom on your opening night, then that respect goes to an entirely new level.

As I watched my eight-year-old standing in complete shock, staring at the Irn-Bru slushy machine going round, I felt like Alice in Wonderland and it was a welcome distraction.

My son chose a slushy accompanied by a waffle with Irn-Bru and bubblegum ice cream, all complete with rainbow sprinkles.

“What’s your favourite sweetie” asked one of the staff. “A twirl” I exclaimed! “We can turn it into a milkshake for you, in fact we can turn any sweet into a milkshake!”

I hadn’t been eating dairy for few weeks but sometimes I crumble – nobody’s perfect, so a twirl milkshake it was.

Sadly due to Covid we couldn’t sit in, but it’s quite nice to take things like this home because I think if I’d stayed I’d have finished it all off with a volcano slushy (their own creation, think ice-cream in a slushie).

So the moral of my story, let’s not beat ourselves up too much just now and look for the little treats in life to keep us going through this tough time and if that means ice-cream at 9pm then so be it!

Life’s tough as it is so “eat the cake” or in this case, the ice-cream, the waffles and the sweeties!

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