Spicy Hot V8 Vegetable Juice

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Tuna, Mayonnaise & Lime Salad

Spicy Hot V8

First of all I wish to have speaks about V8 Spicy Hot Vegetable Juice.  It is made by Campbells and ranks pretty high on the list of things I love about Tortola; just after friends and sunshine and about level with rum, except I can get rum in the UK, and this is my point. 

V8 juices are sold in most supermarkets in England and British people, generally speaking, enjoy spicy flavours yet I have never seen this delicious, spicy version anywhere in the UK.  I once wrote to Campbells asking where I could buy it but they just wrote back saying they were glad I like their product and sending me some discount vouchers to use in the USA so of no use to me.  So I’ve decided to bang on about this on Twitter and the like till I get a result! 

Anyhoo – we are on our boat, have been for a couple of days now.  When we climbed aboard there was an enormous booby on the dinghy davit.  Not that sort of booby, you foul creatures – this sort …

He seems a thoroughly decent sort of chap and almost let me stroke him.  We have been away from the boat for 10 months and I think he has made it his home.  Sometimes he flies past looking puzzled but still quite friendly.

Our boat is a 40+ years old fiberglass sailboat, 36’ long and its claim to fame is it was built for Dr. Spock – the child psychologist not the Vulcan with pointy ears.  We haven’t sailed it for years but my Geordie lad has done her up a treat inside and she is our floating home. 

This year we haven’t got a car so provisioning is difficult, to say the least.  This being the case for lunch we had everyone’s standby – Tuna.  I mixed it with mayo, carrot, red onion and baby tomatoes and served it on lettuce which I’d sprinkled with fresh lime juice.  Pretty good actually, especially offset by the spicy V8.   Another thing about this wonderful drink is it stops me partaking of so much wine at luncheon.

Not much to write home about but there it is!

On our last morning at our friends’ house, as a big thank you, I made them eat Marmite!  This is a fearsome thing to Americans.  

Bob had once tried it on a teaspoon (of all things) and hadn’t been impressed.  

I scraped some abstemiously onto their lovely hot toasted and buttered homemade bread.  They both tried it.  I don’t think Bob liked it because he mentioned that he couldn’t see any reason to put such a thing in his mouth ever again.  Roberta said she thought it was quite … pleasant.

I think the loveliest thing about living on the boat is night time.  We have a comfy bed in the pointy end with a large hatch directly above us. I can think of few things more delicious than lying there looking up at the stars (no light pollution here), the boat rocking gently and making gurgly water noises as the warm tropical breeze caresses out naked bodies and, if we’re lucky and the tropical breeze is in the right direction, the sound of crickets and tree frogs from the shore.  Yummy to the max.