Omnino Uvis

Today I'm trying out the motto, 'I am made entirely of grapes'.

Pliny thinks this is a silly motto, as I am not made entirely of grapes. But as I said to him, a motto can be something to aspire to.

I like grapes. All kinds of grapes, red grapes, purple grapes, green grapes, yellow grapes. I like the sweet yellow sultana grapes with thin skins that drop off their stalks too easily and are now out of fashion but they were good grapes and in February used to be ridiculously cheap. These are the ones I first thought I might be entirely made of, since I ate them till I burst.

I like sultanas too, the dried ones. I eat some every day with breakfast, and snack on them later in the day. The best ones are plump and soft and wrinkly, and I roll them between my fingers before I pop them in my mouth and burst them open with my teeth.

Once I heard someone saying to her friend, 'I can't stand sultanas, they're soft and jellyish inside, they're so disgusting', and I thought, this person is my opposite number. But sometimes I don't like them either. When they're small and dry and candied I don't like them, but I eat them just the same.

I like to drink red wine and white wine too. See, grapes again! If I get my DNA tested one day it will show I am a true Mince Pie whose motto ought to be: Omnino uvis.

There being no other item of a vegetable nature with which I ply myself so diligently.