I have had such a busy day that it was a huge relief to get on to the taxi rank and do nothing.
Mark had a busy day as well. The weather has been fine, with a blustery wind, which pleased me very much because of the washing, and which Mark did not like at all, because he was on somebody’s roof fixing their broadband. Also his ladder blew away, which was an upsetting moment.
I do not have to adjust my hopes for the weather to suit Mark’s requirements, so it did not matter. He might have been stuck in a roof without a ladder, but that was miles away. For my part I was merely grateful to the Weather Gods, because I had been clearing up Oliver’s bedroom, and his towels were all pegged on the line.
It was remarkably tidy. I do not know how I have managed to produce such a beautifully neat and organised offspring. Certainly he does not take after his father.
I did not do much clearing up. I am trying to catch up on myself after having a Platinum Jubilee, a trip to Scotland, and a university assignment to occupy my attention for the last week or so.
My world was collapsing about my ears.
Well, not exactly collapsing, but dustier than it ought to be, and with nothing interesting to eat in the fridge.
It is still dustier than it ought to be, although I have removed the dead flowers.
Fridge-related matters became a crisis when I discovered that the freezer was not working, and there was a disgustingly slimy puddle underneath it.
For some reason, which Mark explained later and which I have instantly forgotten, the top half of the freezer was still working, but the bottom was not, causing everything at knee-height and below to turn into a horrible soggy mess.
Some things were still edible, as in, did not smell bad, although the ice lollies we keep for Ritalin Boy had become bags of sticky, and last year’s damsons looked like a scene from a film about serial killers, the one where the stupid girl looks down and sees blood seeping out from under the door but opens the door anyway.
I opened the freezer anyway. Then I thought I would cook everything that seemed to have survived, and then put it back on the top shelves afterwards.
I had got to do some cooking anyway, because we had run out of things to eat. Of course we did have things to eat, but nothing that we actually could eat. Frozen chicken in the freezer is not exactly appetising. Defrosted, potentially slightly dodgy chicken, is not much of an improvement.
Hence I resigned myself to occupying my day with catering.
I bought myself some peace and quiet for this by defrosting the last of the dog bones and roasting them in the oven for half an hour. When I distributed them amongst the dogs, my personal space was promptly assured for the rest of the day, apart from three sets of gnawing noises coming out of the conservatory.
I am going to stop taking Roger Poopy’s father on our walks. He can’t do it any more, and his hips gave way again this morning. He is going to be restricted to the Library Gardens, I think, in future.
There were a lot of prawns.
I made prawn toast, which handily used up the defrosted bread as well, and coconut prawns. I cooked two gammon joints and chopped the chicken into bits and rolled it in a mix of Chinese spices and cornflour. I fried them, but they turned out to be depressingly dry, so I hunted through the fruit and vegetable drawers in the still-almost-functioning fridge, and raked out anything that might conceivably be considered oriental. I rejected the parsnips, and shoved it all in the blender with some vinegar, then boiled it to make a reasonably convincing pan of sweet and sour sauce, which I poured into tubs, like the stuff you get with a takeaway. You can hardly tell the difference and it was sensible to leave out the parsnips.
I finished off by making a couple of banana cakes with uneaten bananas and courgettes. I know it sounds horrible but they are perfectly all right, especially with about half a bottle of brandy poured over them and left to soak for a couple of weeks.
Tomorrow will be dusting and pie-making.
It doesn’t get more exciting than that.
