Eightitis

Not sure whether it's age related, but I seem to have developed eightitis, which sometimes manifests itself as nineitis - the letters i  or o are starting to come out as the number 8 or 9 when typed on my phone keyboard. There again, it could just be a case of sausage fingers. 

As I get older, I sometimes wonder whether anywhere I have stayed gains the odour of old person. Our house does smell a bit at present, but that's because I found a lady on the Chipping Sodbury Thursday street market who specialises in smelly, French cheeses, and I stocked up last week. I don't have the vaguest idea what I bought, although there was a Bleu d'Auvergne among them and I have a Delice de Bourgogne on order for when she next appears in the new year. The smell even manages to evade the seals on the fridge door, which is a sure sign of potency.

I told her that I'm rather addicted to cheeses that are so high that I risk death from food poisoning and she duly obliged me. 

I have a pot of Stilton which I leave out of the fridge and merely top up ever now and again, primarily with Lidl Stilton, but occasionally a bit of Long Clawson. It reeks, but is delicious and hasn't been washed out in almost a year, but I do keep a lid on it to prevent flies laying eggs on it, which happened once in the summer. It's amazing how delicious even the most immature Stilton becomes after a few days in the pot at room temperature. If the ambient temperature becomes too warm, I pop it in the fridge for a while.

I'm a firm believer that there's no such thing as a sell by or use by date for cheese - the older it is, the more tasty it becomes.