Safe with food

I have not even made the transition from full-time wage-slavery, yet, but have already picked up my first third age qualification.

I am delighted to report that I can now be trusted with food, as I am the proud possessor of a Level 2 Award in Food Safety and Hygiene for Catering.  To achieve this Herculean success I had to endure three hours of well-intentioned lecture, which reminded me so much of the episode of The Office where Gareth explained to a new female recruit how to correctly lift a box, and ninety minutes of on-line instruction from a robotic Northern lass who I imagine had been briefed to speak kindly to the educationally challenged folk wrongly anticipated to making up the majority of her audience, followed by 30 multiple choice questions, two of which I got wrong. One of these was about blue sticking plasters and the other about the effect water has on bacterial pathogens when heated to 82 degrees. On the former, I have no idea what the question actually asked and on the latter I was too optimistic about the power of wet heat.

All of the above will be put into practice for the first time next Tuesday. What larks.