A reader of this blog has suggested that I continue this theme. She says that if I actually did write a book called the Farty Soup Guide to Life, she would buy it purely because the title would make her laugh so. I can see it now, alongside My Booky Wook or That Difficult Second book up there in the top 10 bestsellers. I can see me on television sieving my lentils and stirring in my cabbage whilst talking to whoever (Lorraine say) about how Farty Soup changed my life….

But it is true that the Farty soups are indeed changing my life. Last week, one of my soups got so excited, it actually started talking to me. It had many pulses in it, including aduki beans and mung beans and chick peas and I made an absolute vat of it. I even added cannellini beans and lentils plus cauliflower and cabbage. It actually tasted delicious. I had two bowls and my youngest son ate about ten bowls of it and then, that night, I went to bed and left it on the stove.

The next day we reheated it for lunch and then dinner and, once again, I left it on the stove at night only to find, the next morning, that it was bubbling away of its own accord. ‘What on earth is in that pot?’ my husband yelled as the soup obliging gurgled at him.

‘Is there a baby in there?’ asked my eldest son.

‘Is it some smelly socks?’ asked my middle son.

‘No, it’s thoup,’ said my youngest son.

‘Don’t you know pulses go off after a day?’ said my husband irritably. ‘God, this entire household is going to go down with food poisoning!’

Blurp went the soup.

After my husband went to work, I stirred the soup vigorously hoping it might settle down a bit after some prolonged action. But after I finished moving it around the saucepan it continued in a state of constant momentum. Then it went Blurp again. I decided to tip it into another pan. As I poured it a horrible smell emanated from the pan. It reeked of ancient blue cheese which isn’t, I don’t think, what bean soup is supposed to smell like.

In the end, I poured it into a plastic bag and put it outside the back door. I left it blurping there until my husband came home. He was very late and I was in bed when he came to wake me up.

‘What’s that horrible stink in the back yard?’ he said. ‘Have you chucked out some cheese or something?’

I told him it was the soup but then spent an age defending it on grounds that, actually, it really was a delicious soup. The problem was, I let it stew too long on the hob.

So this is my tip - you can make your Farty Soup but wither don’t make too much of it or eat it pronto before it starts to take on shape and form.

Today I made the less oleagenous version - take lots of cabbage and cauliflower, mushrooms and courgettes and add some carrots and vegetable stock (preferably Marigold but not the gloves obviously) and then boil for not a very long time so that it’s all a bit al dente. This soup is very refreshing, more so than the more winter warming split pea gurgling one.

Oh, and the baby did get sick in the night (twice) and that also smelled like horrible cheese. My husband accused me of poisoning her but, in my defence, I have to say that the baby seems to live off nowt but milk and consequently anything she sicks up smells of off-cheese. But I now have to hide my soups at the back of the fridge so they don’t get chucked out. And the baby didn’t eat any of the soup anyway. What self-respecting baby likes lentils? Actually my eldest son lived off lentils as a baby but he is quite odd actually so…

Re my weight. Did not lose one single measly pound last week. I think it’s because, in an effort to ward off my husband’s over-texting, I got drunk (ish) with him three nights out of seven. I am now off the booze entirely. Instead I am texting my husband like a loony. ‘How R U?’ ‘R U OK?’ That type of thing. God it’s tiring. But it’s working…..I think.

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