It is, of course, Hallowe’en, and I have been horrifying myself investigating the price of new underwear.
For such small garments the price seems disproportionately massive. Even the 2XL ComfortFit sizes, which are just about as big as they go, do not consist of much more than a few scraps of lace and a couple of decorative ribbons which I have to cut off in any case because they scratch. Honestly, for the price of one bra and matching knickers I could purchase sufficient fabrics to manufacture a complete set of thermally lined curtains, probably for the whole of the conservatory. I am prepared to concede that a bra is considerably more fiddly and detailed to make than curtains, and also includes the cost of hooks and eyes, but it can’t be that much more complicated, surely.
Possibly it is, actually, which is why I can make my own curtains but would not know where to start when it comes to underwear.
I am not discussing it with Mark who in the past has unhelpfully offered to economise by making me a set out of tin plate, which would be cheap but uncomfortably weighty, and potentially lethal if I were to fall in the lake.
Still I am going to need new underwear, probably quite soon. The current sets are falling to bits and I am going to have to increase my efforts not to be run over for a while, at least until we have re-mortgaged the house for some replacements.
We came out to work early tonight, because of Hallowe’en. This was not because of any conviction that we would make more money by doing so, but to avoid the hordes of shrieking children who persisted in ringing the doorbell and begging for sweets. We had forgotten this part of Hallowe’en, and it did not take us very long before our entire household supply of confectionery had been exhausted and we had to turn the lights off and hide. This is an uncomfortable thing to be doing in one’s own house, and it did not take us very long before we decided it would be less trouble actually to go out instead of just pretending.
Up until that point it had been a busy day, much of which was occupied with the manufacture of sesame prawn toast.
For those who don’t know how to do this, and I have had queries in the past so here is an explanation. Toast bread on one side. Spread the un-toasted side with a liquidised mix of prawns, eggs, onions, soy sauce, garlic and coriander, seasoned with monosodium glutamate and salt. Turn upside down on a plate of sesame seeds. Open all doors and windows and fry. If you don’t open the doors and windows your house will pong. If you do you will be chilly, it is October. Pick your favourite.
Sweep the spilled sesame seeds up and mop up splashed oil up from absolutely everywhere. Waft lingering frying fumes about in the hope that they will dissipate, which they won’t. Lose a cat out of the open front door. Realise the doormat has become wet. Leave the frying pan in the garden until it has stopped smoking. Forget all about it until it is time to go to work and then find it has got a slug in it. Swear, notice that your clothes smell, wish you hadn’t bothered.
Store the toast in the freezer and heat in the oven about fifteen minutes before leaving for work. It will taste splendid.
Also it will enable you to load calories on to your waistline like a polar bear getting ready to hibernate, if you eat too much of it you will need to go to work in dungarees. I am sitting on the taxi rank feeling very contentedly rotund, having had prawn toast followed by chocolate buttons for dinner. This is a happy way to feel in a taxi.
It sounds all very simple but actually it is quite a bit of faffing about, and I was busy for most of the afternoon whilst Mark was at the farm. He was cutting firewood and yelling at the dogs, who have found a rabbit warren and are now engaged in a burrowing operation.
He has refilled our wood-store in the back yard. Now that we are in the season of winter dark the stove has once again become a ravening monster, and the firewood vanishes quickly. Mark has got lots of other things to do as well, but firewood has to come first, because nobody wants a chilly wife.
I swept and hung the washing before having my second shirk in less than a week, when a friend called in for coffee. She could not stay very long, which was disappointing, because I could quite cheerfully have shirked for the whole afternoon and made prawn toast tomorrow, but it was not to be. I had filled the teapot anyway, and kept it hot on the stove for the rest of the afternoon so that I could keep merrily refilling my cup for the rest of the afternoon.
Did I tell you I was looking at a teapot on eBay.
When we win the Lottery I will buy it without delay, straight after the new underwear.
