The Kitchen climate
When my thoughts first turned to this latest blog a couple of days ago, I was struggling for ideas. Being British, I turned to the weather; customers have been equally bleak and dismal, the only bright spot in it all being the arrival of a new Companion, to whom welcome.
Well, there was another bright spot : we have been given access to ‘Personal Development Funds from Emmaus UK , for training or passports etc, so I put in a bid for a passport renewal faster’n the various bolts of lightening we have had recently (my pet hate). Sent the passport off today; it probably won’t return in time for our Chairman of Trustee’s generous day-trip to France in a couple of weeks, but Cinderella can now (hopefully!) go to the Emmaus Salon, a gathering of the Clans Emmaus in Paris in June.
Within moments of my thinking how quiet and generally dull life has been since the Opening, fate changed the plot. It was Wednesday, and we’d done a ‘dawn raid’ at the cash and carry. Boy Scout training (SO much more fun than the Brownies, I can tell you!) came to the fore, and I’d made meat loafs the day before, to give me time to put the goodies away and subdivide the 9kg of meat, etc, before staring on making lunch.
As it turned out, traffic from the cash ‘n carry was reasonable, so I had an hour or so cleaning time on hand. At which point, I found myself putting spuds on for the mash. Silly thing to do, I won’t be wanting the mash for another couple of hours yet – why did I do that?
The reason chose that instant to arrive, in the shape of a cooker engineer we had called out to check why the back-burners blow out when on a simmer setting. It was the moment of revelation equal to Conrad Lorenz seeing his butterfly, and chaos duly occurred – but luckily lunch was able to proceed on time!
It turned out that the blow-outs were caused by a trivial and easily adjusted mis-fit – but other issues the engineer mentioned led to the original installers being in the kitchen as I write, surrounded in cooker parts prior to moving it in order to… Suffice to say, major works are under way and the happy final outcome will be, inter alia, that the grill is going to be placed at a height where I can actually remove a tray of sizzling sausages without fear of dropping the whole damn’ lot on my head!
Elsewhere, the allotment is planted with onions and spuds and I’m going to research the best strain of rice to plant if the sky continues to pour forth its blessings much longer. I must ask the Shop Companions to reserve a Coolie hat if they get one in…
Whilst on the subject, I have to take this opportunity to pay my own tribute to the late and much lamented Humphrey Lyttleton, who popped to mind (as a devoted fan of “I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue” since it began) when I was up at the allotment last week. A couple of the Committee had come over to discuss what arrangements to make about access to the new fencing at the back of our plot, and one of them suggested it was essential to have a back passage, reducing me to ‘Clue’ giggles in the midst of a Very Serious Discussion…. Thanks for all the laughter down the years, Humph.
