My job involves a little bit of travel. Nothing too strenuous, but about once a week I take the train to Edinburgh. Scotland is quite svelte down here in the central belt, so to go from Glasgow near the west coast to Edinburgh on the east coast only takes 50 minutes. I can cross this whole country in less time than it took me to cross Toronto. This travel doesn't really affect my day, but the journey still leaves me feeling like an epic traveler, one who routinely goes to distant cities to do exotic things such as completing databases.
Last week I was supposed to go four days out of five, in addition to a jaunt up to Dundee for J's opening on Friday night. I didn't end up having to travel quite so much, but a number of hours were still spent on the train and in the stations catching up on the tabloids. Weeks like this throw my regular food patterns into chaos. Breakfasts turn into scalding cups of tea and stale croissant, lunch, especially at conferences, can be grim mayo-fests, and dinner becomes any food that will most quickly enter my mouth. So what do you have for a snack? Well, this is where an oatcake will really shine. They are nutty, healthy little crackers, filling, savoury and nutritious. But what to have with them? Spreads are messy, cheese is inconvenient, meats are perishable. I guess I could bring a wee salami with me and cut it up with my leatherman and make a snack out of that, but I'm tired at snack time and very prone to cutting my fingers in rather severe and dramatic ways and spurting blood all over a train just brings to mind visions of dry cleaning bills from numerous irate office workers.
The on-the-go snack that I turn to at times like this is a pack of oatcakes and a Galaxy bar. You don't eat them together, but at intervals. The Presbyterian bland crunch of the cakes gets exploded by a piece of not-quite-chocolate and almost-too-smooth super sugar. One small bar and six crackers has enough fuel to allow a human to survive comfortably for eight days on the top of the highest Munro (approximately). And if one were in that situation, the contrast between stupid indulgence and sensible food stuff would keep the mind engaged as well. That's important when you are stranded.
I reverted to this snack at the end of the week as I made my way up to Dundee (being in Dundee is sort of like being stranded on a high mountain with very thin air and no access to clean water). The Galaxy package alerted me to the fact that it had a new shape and a "new smoother texture". The shape had a more pronounced wave indentation that instantly looked like an attempt by the makers to reduce the total amount of chocolate in the bar. I don't think this is actually the case, but it's an interesting insight into my paranoia. The new smooth taste on the other hand...Galaxy is already a very smooth bit of chocolate. I don't think adults are supposed to eat it. It has an exceptionally high concentration of dairy and sugar and only a passing interest in cocoa products. As our taste buds die out with age and, much like our hearts, become bitter and difficult, the only thing an old tongue should be able to register when eating a Galaxy bar is aggressive sugar. There's no nuance. It's the chocolate version of what my parents used to call "Kiddie tea" which was mostly milk, enough sugar to rot my tiny baby teeth and a brief kiss with a tea bag. I loved Kiddie tea, and now and then that's the kind of soothing coma I look for in a chocolate bar. But the smoother taste Galaxy has found a new love with what tasted like palm oil, started cheating on the dairy and is still going at it like rabbits with the sugar. Cocoa has been left out of these affairs. It was smoother, but smearing moisturizing cream on my tongue would be smooth, too. I'm not sure that smoothest is best.
This "chocolate" bar had an inordinately longer life in my possession than any other chocolate bar I have ever purchased. It was nibbled on during the train ride, spent some time at the bottom of my bag, and moved to my pocket where it was finally finished in a fit of Christmas shopping stress a couple of days later. It didn't relieve the stress. I'm very sad to say that I can no longer recommend this combination as the snack for train rides and outdoor excursions. Of course the oatcakes quietly held up their end of the bargain, but it will need a new traveling companion in the future.
But let's not talk about these disappointments anymore. Instead, here are some pictures that illustrate what former art students will do when their boss encourages them to make Christmas decorations and they have access to a coloured paper. 
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