Once again I am not in the least sorry to be sitting down on the taxi rank, with nothing to do except write to you and occasionally scowl in an off-putting sort of way at the interrupting sort of people who might think they would like to go somewhere.
I have got a masterly scowl. I once read somewhere that women are expected to smile submissively at people when they meet, but men are not. I have watched for this and discovered that it appears to be true, and so I don’t do it. Instead I look at people over the top of my glasses and simply say Good Evening. I am being polite but people are still thrown off-balance because I ought to smile. Then they either flap about anxiously or don’t quite know what to say, which is ridiculous when you consider that all that is expected of them is Would You Please Take Me To Preston?
I don’t suppose you will be surprised to learn that I have been busy. It was my last day to get food ready before Mark and I depart for opposite ends of the universe after which Oliver will be coming home. We will both need to eat things in our absence, especially Mark who will be climbing up and down things and dangling off the ends of ropes, which is hungry work, and so I thought that today I would replenish our dwindled stores.
They had dwindled almost out of existence. All that was left in the fridge was some lemons that somehow got missed out of the cocktails at Christmas, some cheese that nobody likes, a box that once held something nice and was now empty, and some sticky smears. Also there was a bag of herbs, the sort that were reduced in price in November and were now black and slimy.
It was not an appealing sight.
I wiped some of the smears up although not all, I noticed later, and almost threw the lemons away, but then didn’t because I thought I might stick them in a lemon cake next week. I left the cheese where it was as well, in case we either get desperate or are feeling especially benevolent towards the dogs.
The rest went in the bin, because the slime was too revolting for me to bother scraping it out on to the compost heap.
Then I commenced the Fridge Restoration Project.
I made some Chinese sauce and cooked lots of chicken legs. Then I cooked some sausages. Then I started on the huge project of the morning, which was prawn toast. This is ace to have but takes absolutely ages, and the clearing up is ghastly. I loathe the smell of frying food, and so I threw all of the doors and windows open whilst I did it. Even that did not seem to be helping, so I put the extractor fan on above the cooker, which turned into a disaster because it vibrated so much that a large jar of hot dog sausages vibrated off the top shelf and smashed.
Fortunately it missed me, but it took a lot of clearing up. I swept the kitchen floor, and then mopped it, and then swept it again, and again after that for good measure. Then I knew there was no point in wasting a good bucket of soapy water, so I swept and mopped the conservatory as well.
I remembered then that I had not brought the firewood in, so I did that and had to sweep again after that.
In the end I had seventeen slices of prawn toast and a very clean floor, and the fire was roaring nicely up the chimney to warm the house up again, because it had got very cold whilst all the doors were open.
After that I made ice cream, because Oliver is coming home, and then I made cheese and onion pies.
I had almost finished them when I had a visitor, so I was glad I had got a clean floor, how embarrassing if it had looked as though we were still the sort of place that scattered sawdust and rushes to hide the dog accidents and spilled mead from too much jolly wassailing.
After that the day proceeded swimmingly, because Elspeth kindly hung around and kept me company whilst I got on with the cooking. This was especially nice because she did not explain what I was doing wrong, which apparently is what I do when I watch her doing anything.
After that we had a very nice afternoon indeed. Number One Daughter rang up part way through to say that she had been promoted and was now a Warrant Officer. I was delightedly enthusiastic, but when Elspeth asked me afterwards what a Warrant Officer was I had to admit that I didn’t have a clue, so we had to look it up on Google. I am not telling you, you can look it up for yourselves. It is jolly important.
I made chocolate caramel shortbread and fudge and coffee chocolates. I made some sausage rolls as well but left them in the oven too long and they went a bit black on the top, because I was gassing instead of thinking about cooking, but Mark says they are fine anyway.
In the end I had to come to work, and Elspeth had to go home, but it was a very splendid afternoon.
Better still, there are some tins of fudge on top of the smeary shelves in the fridge.
And I have got a clean kitchen floor.
