Sunset from Hill House, Mount Helen. February 2024

Monday, December 01, 2008

A cold weekend's activities

It’s amazing what the implications of adding a new piece of kit to the kitchen can be.

One large (ish) Le Creuset casserole. Needs somewhere to live. And there’s no space in the cupboards.


There is, however, plenty of cupboard space. It’s just not being used effectively. Everything is pretty much still where it was when we moved in two and a half years ago (yes – really; two and a half years!) and put things in places that “Would do for now”.

I made a start reorganising and turning out the cupboards. Alas; if you are going to turn out the cupboards, especially if you only do it every two and a half years, you more or less also have to clean them. So I did.

In the meantime, the weekend’s activities had been enlivened at 08:10 on Saturday morning by the arrival of a medium sized skip in our driveway (Oscar wasn’t in the driveway, fortunately. He was probably irritating Mrs Bay Windows by loitering with The Vixen in Ward Street). It had been further enlivened by The Builder’s eBay purchase of a rotivator which needed collecting from Ilkeston, near Derby. I went with him, just for the ride. And as a displacement activity from turning out the cupboards. And a very pretty ride it was too, even if it was quite remarkably foggy. Jenny took us effortlessly to the address – to their surprise; it’s a new estate and most sat navs can’t find them. They were expecting us to ring up in a lost sort of a way. Except they had failed to send us their phone number. And little did they know that I have subscribed to a quarterly map updating service and have the very latest map on Jenny, which includes their estate.

Oscar has a larger boot capacity than might appear to be the case. With a bit of wiggling, the rotivator fitted in quite snuggly.

We came home along an alternative route, just because. Also very pretty, though it was still foggy and extremely busy in and around Alfreton.

We got home. The Builder went out and began filling up the skip. I turned my attention to the cupboards.

I have sorted out and cleaned the cupboards. I have reorganised the black shelves and the side shelves. I’ve even sorted out the plastics cupboard. Then ----- I began looking at the tiles :-S There went most of my vinegar and two scrubbing brushes. Then the stove top – not too bad because I do that regularly. Then I made the humungous error of looking up at the extractor hood. Gulp!

I certainly haven’t cleaned it since we moved in. I don’t think it’s EVER been cleaned. It’s clean now! But it took for ever. It needs a new filter. It probably needs doing again to make it truly, really sparkly. Semi-deep cleaning the kitchen took virtually all weekend :-( And it still isn’t properly finished. And I didn’t even get to the larder :-( Can’t do it next weekend, cos we’re going to London. Perhaps the weekend after. Or maybe in the couple of days before Christmas.

While all this was going on, The Builder carried on filling the skip, dismantling the front rockery while he was about it. The fog thickened, paused, pondered and went away over Saturday night. He carried on into Sunday, knocking down the side step as he went. It was not foggy on Sunday but it was surely cold! The skip is now nearly full and eventually he conceded that he was much too cold to do anything else and came inside. But all the stones and rubble are now accounted for, and some of the soil has been moved down into the kitchen garden, ready for a new life as vegetable beds.

We had tea and gooseberry cake with cream for afternoon tea as a reward for all our efforts, and especially The Builder’s efforts out in the freezy weather.

The Le Creuset casserole which started the whole kitchen thing now has a new home. Except that it’s not in it!! Waitrose was selling silverside on special offer last week and I bought some. It’s unusual for me to buy my meat at the supermarket but it fitted all my meat-buying criteria so I did. Someone had mentioned to me that they had made a goulash with the one they bought. Goulash sounded good to me. So I made a huge pot of it yesterday after I had stopped cleaning. We didn’t need goulash for dinner last evening – I had a piece of pork for roasting. And in any case, spicy casseroles always taste the better for a bit of keeping. So the Le Creuset pot is currently sitting on the stove top, watching over the goulash. All that effort to create it house room and it doesn’t want it!!

For some reason my arms are aching quite a lot today!
It was Advent Sunday yesterday. We had given some thought to going to one of the higher churches but decided that the skip needed to take priority. So I listened to the Sunday Service on the radio. But I think I'm going to have to give up Songs of Praise on BBC2 on Sunday afternoon/evenings. It irritates me too much these days. They did top and tail yesterday's program with Advent hymns, but the service was mostly about children and babies and vaguely Christmasy things. You'd think they could at least do Advent on Advent Sunday! And they let one congregation sing a hymn which called God "lovely" Lovely? God isn't **lovely**. Lambs are lovely. So are kittens. Gooey chocolate cake is lovely. Likewise snuggly, fleecy things and log fires in winter. But ***GOD***?!?!?!?!? I had to leave the room, splutteringly speechless at that point!
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There has been an astronomical phenomenon in Australia today. The conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and a half moon, to create a smile in the sky. Here are Ian’s photos of it (not mine, NB - I'm not in Melbourne today):











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